(Technically, I was the guest in the cat’s house. She’s just a guest on my blog.)
Today’s Feline Friday is brought to you by Keta, small and grey, who lives with my sworn-brother Stephen. Every so often she would look up at me and say “mraaaaaaah.” I’m not sure if that means “give me treats,” or “what the heck are you doing in my house, human?” or if it’s just a friendly hello.
She was very patient about letting me take pictures of her. Here she is showing off her super-fancy Soft Paws, which prevent her from tearing the carpet into small ragged bits. I have been tempted on more than one occasion to apply these to Floyd and Kipling’s claws, but I think I could probably only successfully get them onto Floyd. The claws still need to be trimmed before the Soft Paws go on, and if I can get Kipling’s claws trimmed then he wouldn’t need the Soft Paws in the first place.
Unlike Floyd and Kipling, Keta is happy to sit right beside the fire. (Unlike my fireplace, this one is gas and less likely to startle cats with sudden noises.) Whenever we had it burning, she was up on the hearth soaking in the warmth. I can’t say that I blame her!
Keta’s favourite toy is a small rubber alligator, which she carries around the house with her. It seems to be the only toy she’s interested in, though she did stare pretty intently at my yarn while I was finishing up the Warm Hat, and once or twice considered making a grab for the dangling ends.
Thanks for being a guest cat on today’s Feline Friday, Keta!
My name is Floyd, cat of cats. Look on what used to be your slippers, ye human, and despair! (He actually doesn’t really mess with the slippers too much. He just likes to guard them so that no one else can have them.)
He is such a handsome and dignified cat. At least, he likes to pretend that he’s dignified. There is something incredibly undignified about falling off the back of the couch, or deciding that one’s left rear foot has become a mortal enemy.
Kipling is considerably less dignified. What can you say about a cat who sleeps upside-down, other than “awwww!”
He sure does know how to work his cuteness to its maximum potential.
Thanks to my new camera, I was able to get some pictures of Floyd that are more than just a black silhouette of a cat against a blurry background. Here’s my sleek and handsome cat-loaf sitting by the front door, pretending that I don’t exist. It’s better than running away and refusing to have his picture taken!
Floyd has actually been very lovey lately, which is a nice change from his previous emo-cat behaviour. He likes to sit on my lap when I’m on the couch; there is no convincing him to sit next to me the way Kipling does. I think this is just fine except that it’s very difficult to type with his head draped over my wrist and his paw covering the spacebar. I also have a hard time knitting with him in my lap, because he hasn’t yet learned to leave the yarn alone.
And, marvelously, he’s been better-behaved through the night. A few nights ago I had to evict Kipling from the bedroom at 04:00 when he had an attack of the crazies and started building a fort with the surplus sheets at the bottom of the bed, but Floyd stayed with me, curled up against my side, and snoozed quietly until my alarm went off.
Because he was so well-socialized as a kitten, we can do all sorts of torturous things to him like pick him up and snoogle the daylights out of him, as demonstrated here by friend Stef. He just sighs, puts on a long-suffering look, and lets us do whatever we need to do. I can even trim his claws by myself without assistance! Even his rare baths usually go smoothly, though that’s better managed with two people involved. He might complain about it and give us the cold shoulder for an hour afterwards, but he rarely argues (and he never turns down the treats afterwards). For all his quirks, he’s growing up to be a great cat.
Kipling, on the other hand, is not at all fond of being picked up and snoogled. Have you ever seen a cat look so worried? We’re trying to teach him that being held is a good thing. With gentle patience I think he’ll eventually come around.
Unfortunately, all the pictures I tried to take for this post came out horrifically blurry. Oh cats, why won’t you hold still for me? Don’t you know how many people wish to admire you?
Fortunately, my incredibly talented sister the Ninja drew an adorable portrait of Kipling, so this post isn’t completely without pictures! She is having a sale on toony-style pet portraits this month. If you’re interested, you can read more here, and see some pictures of her border collie Finnegan looking ridiculous while playing “catch” with snowballs.
Unfortunately, Kipling’s sensitive stomach is acting up again, so he’ll be visiting the vet next week. We’re not sure if it’s just stress from having bunches of people in the house over New Year’s weekend, or if it’s something else. Floyd has been turning into a nine-pound Napoleonic bully about the litterbox, lying in wait for Kipling to step out of it and then pouncing. That probably doesn’t help much, either, although I can’t blame him for being annoyed about the smell. My ninja-sister (who knows a *lot* about pet care and nutrition) suggested adding a little bit of canned pumpkin to their food, and I started that this morning. I was afraid that the cats would turn their noses up at the new taste, but both of them dove right into their breakfasts and happily nommed away. Floyd doesn’t need the pumpkin, but since the cats switch off on their bowls, I’m putting a little bit into each dish. Hopefully it helps, because the next step for Kipling might very well be an expensive biopsy to find out what’s wrong with his innards.
Fortunately, I got a new camera, and that means there should be much better pictures on the blog from now on. It’s a Canon SX230HS, which is one of their medium-level point-and-shoots. It’s a lot more complicated than my last camera, with all sorts of scene settings and facial detection. It even has modes for aperture priority and shutter priority, which I didn’t expect on such a small camera. And, friend Stef is going to lend her DSLR to me for a while, since she isn’t using it very much at the moment. It’s a Canon T1i, very similar to the one I’d buy if I won the lottery, so I’m really looking forward to the opportunity to learn how to use it properly, and to taking non-blurry pictures of the Dynamic Duo. Especially Floyd – I realize that I don’t write about him nearly as much on Feline Friday, but he’s so hard to photograph. Having a better camera should help with that.
It’s been cold here on top of the mountain, and we’ve been setting the thermostat low to keep the electric bill down. With the chimney freshly swept, a brand new cap installed thanks to Pirate-Husband’s handiness and skill, and a sky threatening snow, I thought it was the perfect time to light a fire. (Even though this does very little to warm the house past a three-foot radius around the fireplace, there’s still something about a roaring fire on a cold night that’s quite comforting.)
Kipling had no idea what was going on. He sniffed at the new fire for about thirty seconds and then wouldn’t go near it again. I tried to convince him to sit with me on the hearth, but he wouldn’t have any of it. Even after the fire had been going for an hour and was putting out significant warmth, he stayed up on the coffee table looking from a safe distance. After about two hours, he realized that hey, it’s *warm* over there! and moved closer to the fireplace.
Sir Not Appearing In This Post, AKA Floyd, wouldn’t go near the fire either, even though I asked him to just pose in front of it for a moment. For the sake of a picture, of course. He said that he would do no such thing, turned up his nose, and stalked away. What kind of crazy cats don’t like sitting near a warm fire on a cold night? There really is nothing like it; I’ll sit on the hearth if they won’t! And I’m certainly not complaining that the house smells of woodsmoke now, either.
When I lit another fire the next day, Kipling didn’t hesitate to sit near it. It’s good to know that he’s got a few brain cells in his spotted head. Floyd, on the other hand, still hasn’t figured it out. He slept on the couch the whole time the fire was lit. Silly cat!
The management would like to apologize for the lack of pictures in this post. It has been too dark by the time I get home from work to get good shots of anything. Hopefully this situation will be rectified over the weekend. But it is still Feline Friday, and so here is the latest about the Dynamic Duo:
One morning this week I woke up with Kipling snuggled up to my chest. At ten pounds he’s a little small to spoon with, really, but he was trying. And he was also mashing the top of his head into the underside of my chin. “I love you!” *headbutt* “I love you!” *headbutt* “I really really love you!” *wet nose and headsmoosh*
Pirate-Husband often filks songs to or about the cats. The latest goes something like this:
Don’t stop the feeding
Hold on to that fee-eeli-iiine
Kipling wants kibble
all the tiiiiiiime
I’m sorry. That’s going to be a terrible earworm. It was for me; I couldn’t get it out of my head, so this morning I tried to work out the rest of the song.
Just a spotted cat
living in a mountain house
he walks the hallway rail going back and forth
Just a small black cat
playing with a furry mouse
He’ll pace the other cat going back and forth
Two cats in my living room
roll in catnip and act like loons
in a second they will steal my seat
They’ll meow on and on and on and on
I can’t believe I’m doing this.
Kittens waiting, sitting by their dinner dish
their pink mouths meowing in the niii-iigght
Sunbeam kittens, living just to take a nap
Hiding, somewhere in the night
There is absolutely no progress to report on the Dancing Cranes stole. I spent Wednesday after work configuring my new computer (yay, new computer!) and so didn’t have time in the evening to knit. Last night when I sat down to put my two rows on I completely misread the chart and knit, then painstakingly unknit, about 80 stitches. Unknitting the SSKs was not particularly enjoyable, but eventually I’d gotten back to my mistake and worked forward again until I realized that my eyes were crossing from tiredness. Since sleepy lace knitting is a recipe for making mistakes in lace knitting, I put the stole down halfway through a row and went to bed.
I’ve been thinking about design again! The weather is getting colder and that makes me want to knit cozy warm things. I had the idea for a double-thick fingerless glove/convertible mitten, with colourwork on the outside mitten. Already I’m sketching out how it would be constructed. Both the inside and outside would be worked in DK weight yarn, possibly using different yarns for each. The outside would use a strong and smooth yarn so the colourwork would show up well, while the inside could be made of a softer luxurious yarn.
Happy Feline Friday! Could these two be any cuter?
Yes, Floyd does have bald spots around his lips. When he was a young kitten he had an allergic reaction that gave him horrible skin crusties in his ears and on his pawpads and lips. Poor little guy! We’re still not sure what caused it, but fortunately the crusties cleared up quickly and have never come back. Usually it’s difficult to notice that the fur doesn’t grow well around his mouth; the camera flash reflecting off his skin makes it seem worse than it really is.
The fourth washcloth has been giving me no end of troubles. I must have started it seven or eight times, with four different patterns, just trying to get it right. Each time something went wrong – I missed a stitch, I chained the wrong number of stitches, the colours were playing out in the ugliest blotches. Finally I gave up and decided to do another Woven Stitch cloth, since the last one came out so well, and I had much better luck. I didn’t get another argyle, but I did get some nice zig-zags. So much better than splotchy blotches! (But man, I really need to get a better camera, or wait ’til daylight to take pictures.)
I ordered the Silken Kydd yarn from Elann for the Dancing Cranes stole, and I’m totally impressed with their shipping time. I placed the order on Sunday night and got the yarn on Wednesday morning! The pattern calls for three balls of yarn and three pattern repeats to make a 14.5″ by 80″ stole. I ordered a fourth ball in case I’m crazy enough to want to do an extra 8400 stitches of a fourth pattern repeat for a slightly wider stole, or just in case three isn’t quite enough. Since I want it finished for cousin Dianna’s wedding in May, I’m going to have to get started right away. Even if I only knit one row a day, it will be done in time. I’ll cast on this weekend and see how far I can get.
Floyd and Kipling are the best laundry helpers I could have wished for. They’re also a great incentive to put the laundry away as soon as it’s out of the dryer. Otherwise they will shed on it, use it for a jungle gym or as a hiding spot for guerrilla warfare or as a perfect napping hammock.
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