Holiday Follow-Up

MrrrrR Friends,

We’re having a lovely week and I hope you are too.

The other day we did festive gift giving. Another nice tradition – ours is a simple version. Here’s my gift to my people.

And, here’s a wonderful video of Alex upholding a long-standing tradition in our house.

Alex’s lemon was the perfect complement to my greenfish.

Nothing like a little fresh organic catnip in a lovely toy to make a holiday truly special.

And for all of you that are wondering, Alex is doing pretty well. Her leg seems to be healing around her torn ligament. We’ve tried to follow the doctor’s orders: no running and jumping and minimal playing. She’s not limping and still trying to take it easy. Her nice surgeon lady said it is quite possible that Alex might be able to heal on her own and that, if successful, the mending would be as good as that resulting from surgery. We’ll know more in 2-3 weeks.

Merry Merry!

Season's Greetings

Mrrrr Friends,

Happy Holidays!

This is my first year with a festively decorated holiday tree, and I wanted to share it with all of you.

I’m very excited to join in this quite awesome human celebration of trees, giving, and peace. Cats don’t naturally celebrate the December holidays of humans – some of us adopt them of course. I have cat friends celebrating Eid al-Adha, Christmas, and Hanukkah – all in December this year.

For the most part, we are big fans of Winter Solstice, otherwise know as Catsolstice. All cats celebrate that event every year – think of it, the longest night of the year, any cat’s favorite time of day, maximized! Catsolstice party events usually include all night caterwauls and cat prowls, a big feast and a cat sporting event – tree climbing being a big favorite.

And, given this thousands of years old cat tradition, you can imagine how challenged we are – especially when we are just kittens – to see our first tree come into our peoples home, get decorated with twinkly lights and shimmery decorations, soft sewn ornaments that look like they might have catnip in them, and, thanks to the foolhardy among you, ornaments that are actually edible. It’s just sitting there…begging to be climbed, jumped into, swatted at or laid under. Fortunately for me, the trunk of our tree is really quite skinny, not something I aspire to scale.

Alex and I swat quite a bit, but our people are prepared for this and keep ornaments out of easy reach. They are happy to let us lie under the tree and look up into the lights and ornaments, occasionally napping a bit, and they do not get perturbed when we play with one or more of the three wise teddies and the panda that sit on the blanket of snow that wraps the tree stand. They say they did get a bit perturbed, though, when Alex tried to drink the tree water, but she seems to be off the sauce this year.

I helped decorate this year. We did lights first. Then we did glass and tin ornaments, and that was exhausting, so I had to sleep after that. The next day the rest of the ornaments went on, and you see the results above.

All in all, this looks to be a very fun week ahead. Alex and I want to wish all of you a very happy Catsolstice, Christmas, Eid, and a belated happy Hanukkah. But, most importantly, we wish you and your furry, feathered, and scaled companions fun, health, joy, silliness, excellent food and friends, and peace in the coming year.

Please consider putting your tree out for the birds and other critters when you are done.

Cataesthetics – on upholstery

Let’s talk upholstery. The upholstery in your home is very important to your furry feline friends. I’m assuming that if you read this blog and enjoy it, you are not in the category of humans that forbid their animals to use the couch or chair. Okay, I can see one or two precious items that you might want to ask us to not sit on.

Cats look at an upholstery fabric in a myriad of ways. I’ll try to break them down simply so you can catch on quickly. First, is it a pleasing color? Does it remind us of rabbit guts in any stage of decay or more of our mom’s furry tummy when we were tiny? Second, is there a pattern on it? Does the pattern look vaguely like a running bunny or does it remind us of a bowl of our favorite food morsels in a creamy sauce? Third, what is the texture? Is it stiff or does it have bumps or raised ridges that incite the completely uncontrollable urge to lean back and sink our claws into it, or is it smooth, warm, and perhaps even slightly furry to the paw?

Texture is very important, so I will dwell a bit…leather is good, but the pebbly kind not as much. No plastic is acceptable. Naugahyde is a matter of personal taste – me and Alex, we’d prefer something else. Woven surfaces, rushing, caning, woven bark or cloth, do pose particular problems. These fall in the no-no side of the texture category. You can however work with us on this one. A case in point:

My people have several very nice, very old chairs with rushing on them. When I moved in, they just drove me nuts. I knew I was bad, but I could not control my inner demon cat. They kept the chairs out but covered them with placemats that met the above conditions. After some struggle and a good deal of gentle but firm insistence on both my peoples’ part, my urges subsided. Indeed, I often slept on the chairs with their placemats. Months later, I realized the placemats were gone. I quickly averted my gaze, heart pounding but then I realized that the urge to claw had dissipated. I could simply go over to the carpet roll and claw it a bit. I had control.

Alternatives are critical. Scratchy pads made of burnable or recyclable cardboard spiked with catnip to make them attractive can be purchased for a pittance at any decent “pet” store. We are particularly fond of a good roll of outdoor carpet. Also, I heartily recommend you find a good entry way mat of sturdy woven material, like sisal, and just let your furry friends wail on it. For some of the less thoughtful felines out there, it makes them feel like they are getting away with something.

For the most part, my people have followed these strictures above. They did recently make a mistake, and, try though we do, Alex and I are making them pay for it. Note the nubby quality of the weave in the photo here...I have spared you and my people any images of the "discussed areas." They are looking into some nice chemical-free, tightly woven hemp and hemp/cotton fabrics that are affordable, smooth, warm, and pleasing of color. We also looked into the very nice Knoll fabrics (many of which are chemical free)…I was particularly attracted to the ultrasuede, but it cost a lot of cat food per yard. I heard my male person explain the situation to an upholsterer (who is also a drummer and all-around cool dude). The upholsterer understood right away—“We do a lot of work for cats.”

In the end, furniture upholstered with some attention to your cat is a wonderful amenity for all. We of course enjoy a multitude of surfaces, some smooth and wooden, others cool and ceramic, and most definitely we enjoy a warm down comforter with a flannel cover or a nice Persian carpet. I think I’ll go lay on the Moroccan pile for a bit…writing makes me sleepy.

Catolympics & Catastrophe

Mrrrr Friends,

Last weekend I attended the 1,401st bi-annual Catolympics in Needles, CA. It was quite an event, with cats of all shapes and sizes in attendance, and hosted by Muddlepuddle, one of the wisest cats in the universe. There were a lot of felines like me but there were also lynx, cheetahs, lions…cats of all shapes and sizes. (Yes, Snoopy’s brother Spike was there too…a few individuals from other species do attend.) I did some tree climbing there.

Cats aren’t terribly competitive, you know, at least not just for the sake of being competitive. It’s different, for some cats, when, for example, a mouse is involved. But at the catolympics we don't do prey items and there isn’t much scoring and trying to win…it is more a sharing of methodologies. I am satisfied to say that I awed more than a few cats with my tree-top paw work. I, in turn, was truly amazed by some of the tree-trunk management skills of my feline friends. If you’ve ever seen a squirrel climb up a tree trunk going around and around, then you’ll just begin to understand the variety of strategies for climbing a tree. And yes, since you are wondering, there were all different sizes of trees too.

Interestingly, getting back down is a problem shared by many of my fellow felines.

A great time was had by all. We ate tons of “Cowboy Cookout” – that wonderful canned entrée by Merrick – washed down with a good St. Emilion that our French cat amies brought and followed by long, yowling caterwaul-alongs with a lovely single malt courtesy of our Scottish Fold colleagues. Some nights there were cans and bottles strewn about…morning required a lot of cleanup and recycling.

You’re probably wondering how I managed to get the time away without my people knowing. We cats have our ways. You know all those hours of sleep we get in? Sometimes we’re really just not there. I can’t say more…cats have codes. But, in this case, the folks were up in the Adirondacks, and my pal Alex was having a spa weekend with her Granma.

Alex needed the spa weekend because she nipped out to Gstaad for a big cat ski party the weekend before Thanksgiving. Again the people were away and the cats did play. Unfortunately, Alex had a skiing accident…not the kind I usually have après-ski with the Scotch, but a real live “agony of defeat” kind of accident.

She hurt herself…ACL injury or, in cat terms, a torn cruciate ligament in her right rear leg. We think it happened while landing after a particularly long or slightly off-pitch jump. She’s had a full work up now by a cat surgeon specialist in Westbury, NY, and we are all discussing the surgery versus no surgery options. It’s a difficult time. Alex is bravely powering through, but we all know there is a limitation. The ligament cannot heal. It is torn for good.

The question is can Alex’s supercat body compensate and build scar tissue quickly enough and in a way that will give her a good long-term quality of life? The risk is that she will blow her meniscus – the pad in her knee between the two long bones. Then, she will definitely need surgery. Or, the vet lady surgeon can go in now and replace Alex’s ligament with a fancy plastic line that is, basically, thick fishing line. We all want to know what kind of knot she’ll use.

Cats don’t like surgery, let’s be clear. We are not like dogs. Dogs usually yowl and whimper when they are hurt. We rarely do this. We dig deep and try to act healthy. We don’t want to be fooled with or fussed over at this level. Sometimes this is a good strategy, sometimes it is not. Alex wants time to fix herself by sleeping and taking it relatively easy. A cat would rarely choose surgery even when it might be the best path to healing and staying healthy. We might need to consider some human intervention here.

I’m doing my part for Alex by licking her forehead a lot and working with her to develop ligament friendly games: door jamb paw hockey is our favorite right now. I’ll keep all of you up to date on developments.

Contradictions

MrrrRrr Friends,

It has been a long time. I hope all of you are well.

You know, I just reread my past two blogs, and I realize that they seem a bit contradictory. On the one paw, here’s me talking about the need to curb consumption, and, on another paw, here’s my people buying another petroleum-powered vehicle. Granted, the little green car may be more efficient than the black car, now happily living in Indiana, but why not a hybrid? Well, after a quick look at their checkbook, it becomes apparent…I think they spend too much on cat food.

My female person loves to drive…it’s a problem with people of the Midwestern persuasion. Cars are a convenience and they’re practical – imagine taking me to the vet on a bicycle!

Nevertheless, cars are probably one of the biggest contributors to global warming. And all that metal, plastic, and stinky, gooey transmission fluid, anti-freeze, and brake fluid just adds to the junk pervading the environment. Sure, it’s great that BMW and several other car-makers use a lot of recycled metal and plastic in their cars, but…

Road salt is another by-product of cars and the insatiable desire to drive. Road salt actually attracts mammals and birds to roads in the winter. Both have salt cravings, and birds may use road salt as grit to aid in their digestion. Unfortunately, road salt is toxic to wildlife. Not only is there evidence that road salt can poison birds and mammals, but salt toxicosis impairs them and makes it difficult for them to notice and therefore avoid cars. A vicious cycle… The number of road kill birds soars in snowy winters. As a bird-lover, I cringe to think of it.

The ecological consequences of all that dissolving salt sprinkled on roadsides and then draining into local soils and waters – and into groundwater – is a problem too. If you want all the gory details, I’ll post a link to a nifty study produced by our esteemed neighbors to the north – the scientists at Environment Canada.

Roads themselves – not that I’m in any way advocating off-roading, except on your own paws – are virtually synonymous with ecosystem fragmentation. Non-permeable surfaces, they divide up the world of snakes, turtles, caterpillars, mosses, wrens, moose, ferns, porcupines, trees, and owls and invite people to build things…things I would like to point out they have in other places that, likely, they just came from…by driving.

I could go on, but I’m out of practice and my tail is tired from hitting the shift key.

If you have a car, any kind, just take care of it for as long as seems practical. Find a nice, honest mechanic – they are out there, my person used to be one – and have them help you keep your car running safely and efficiently. No skimping on tire pressure or exhaust systems.

In the end, the best solution is to drive as little as you can. I’m proud and relieved that both my people both work from home. If they thought about it and took a little extra trouble, a lot of businesses could help their working people drive less, do more work from home, and - critically - have the opportunity to care full-time for their cats. The internet offers all kinds of communications options - many are best accomplished with a furry friend on lap. Take it from me, a blogging cat!