A New Leaf

Mrrrrr Friends,

I hope your human holidays were fun, furry, and relaxing.

Ours were kind of quiet with spurts of busyness. People seem to congregate on human holidays. This is somewhat entertaining for cats like me and Alex. We enjoy smelling what people bring in on their clothes and persons…where they’ve been, what they’ve been eating, what lotion they use, etcetera. We do not enjoy that, when they arrive, they seem bent on sitting on all the cat spots…the couch, the nice chair. After they plump themselves right down, they look at us oddly as we stand in front of them, glaring. Or they take it as a compliment when we go ahead and try to sit on our spot – through them – anyway.

Ah well. Our people smile at our minor tribulations when we have company. They reprimand inappropriate shooshing of cats when we are comfortably ensconced on a favorite resting spot, but they do believe in first come, first serve. That’s okay by us. If you leave your seat to eat or pee, for example, and someone takes your spot….that’s life. It’s a two-way street here at our house…humans can lose their seats as easily as cats.

Anyway, it was nice to see some different faces, listen to stories, and watch the fire.

It put me in a contemplative mood.

For a long time now, I’ve been sensing a need for change. While I love the back yard at the little house, I’m feeling a bit cramped and I think I’m gaining weight. I miss the open spaces and deep snow of Wisconsin and, while I am not in a hurry to move back home, I yearn for a little freshwater stream to fish in, some new trees to climb, and a greater variety of critters whose antics I can follow.

Of course, as soon as I say that, I think about how much I love my climbing trees here, my neighbor pal David, and being close to my son Rotor. But cats do move on.

Given my slightly rounder than usual girth – my winter cat suit was a bit tight – I think some stairways are needed. Nothing like running up and down stairs chasing a wide variety of cat toys and, better yet, chasing Alex, to get a fellow into fit shape for spring-time tree climbing. Speaking of which…I’m considering a shift to conifers. Not that I don’t enjoy Acer saccharum and Prunus serotina – my favorites here at the little house – but I need to expand my horizons. I’m thinking Balsam Fir, Black Spruce, and, for variety, perhaps some Quaking Aspen.

The holidays can often be about mayhem, but they can also provide some quality quiet time that allows deep held thoughts to percolate and brew…if you let them. I’ve been feeling this way for some months now…but now I know I’m thinking in the right direction.

I hope you can take some time to relax and think this holiday…let your mind go off the leash and just roam about sniffing for hopes and dreams. Cats are good at this. If you know a cat, you might want to snuggle up with them and ask their help in unleashing your brain.

Me, I’m already working on making my dreams reality.

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.