The Knitting Pirate

It was recently pointed out to me that my house is the sort of place that creative people might rent in order to escape from the world and write the Great American Novel or paint a series of landscapes. I’m so lucky to live here, and I want to make the most of what some of my friends refer to as “their mountain vacation house.” It’s a beautiful place, and there’s lots of inspiration to be had just from living up there. Then another friend (Hi, Monica!) wrote, “what if I thought of EVERY day like that; just a vacation with some mandatory stuff thrown in?”

She hit the nail on the head. I look at life as an adventure: some parts are more difficult than others, some challenges seem as if they may never be overcome. All in all, though, almost every little thing in life can be made good and exciting, and I try to look for ways to make everything into a quest or a challenge or a mission. It’s turning life into a fun game instead of a dreadful series of boring responsibilities like going to work and paying the bills.

Instead of thinking of the house as just a house, it’s become the exclusive Up Mountain Bed and Breakfast. Instead of having to run errands, I go on missions to restock the pantry with the best food I can find (and then there’s the challenge of keeping to my grocery budget). Exercise isn’t just having to work out, it’s a part of Operation: Badass. Everything can be turned into part of the fun and the game.

Lately I’ve been feeling as if all my projects are crawling along slower than a turtle, so I started thinking of ways to rekindle my excitement about them. Keeping on with the vacation home metaphor, what do resort vacations have? Scheduled activities. I’ve always done well with schedules and routines; they help keep me from procrastinating. “Oh, I’ll just check a few things on the internet” turns into “now I’m too hungry to exercise, I’d better make dinner,” to “this show I want to watch is on,” and the next thing you know, I’ve stayed up too late doing nothing at all. Then I feel guilty when I realize that I’ve wasted my day putting off the things that I say I want to do.

So I’m going to try an experiment for the month of April, and plan out my time after work to make the most of everything. I’ve written out a schedule which includes the new start to Operation: Badass, enough time to cook and enjoy good food, an hour of a specific creative activity every weeknight, and also time for the slightly more mundane stuff like cleaning the house. I’ve even remembered to give myself some free time to do whatever I want.

As I get more done, I should have more to blog about as well. Now that the days are getting longer and there’s more light in the afternoons, I should be able to take more pictures. I’m going to keep my camera close by so I don’t miss any opportunities. I’m really excited about turning over this new leaf, and I hope you’ll enjoy reading about my adventures – and please do cheer me on, because that will definitely help me stick with it!

Last week I visited my kitten dealer Dawn and her husband John. There is no way I’m getting another kitten, but they had a foster mama and three babies with them for a few days. When Dawn offered me the chance to come over for a little bit of kitten therapy, I couldn’t turn her down! (Not to mention the chance to hang out, have dinner and a few drinks, catch up, and play games. That part was fun too.)

This little girl was only three or four days old when I took her picture. Her eyes and ears are still shut, and I didn’t get to hold her long before Mama Cat was chirping for me to return her. I would have been happy to let her sleep in my hand all night, but she needed Mama’s warmth and milk, not to mention the companionship of her brother and sister. While Mama Cat is mostly a solid gray, all three kittens were tabbies. The two girls had stripes and white chests, and the little boy had a classic tabby swirl going on. All three kittens were (of course) absolutely adorable.

At one point I shifted her around in my hand and she fell asleep upside-down. When we gave her the tiniest of bellyrubs with just the tip of one finger, she squirmed and waved her little paws around, and opened her mouth as if she were giggling. I’ve never seen a ticklish kitten laughing before. It was the cutest thing ever! As soon as we stopped, she fell right back to sleep.

It’s coming up on kitten season, and I’m looking forward to helping Dawn “torture” the little ones with lots of snoogling, paw-touching, and ear-rubbing. The more kittens are handled when they’re really young, the better they’ll be about it when they grow up. Floyd doesn’t like when I trim his claws or clean his ears, but he doesn’t put up any arguments about it. Kipling seems to have missed out on his early torture sessions and is touchy about letting me touch his paws… though he doesn’t mind having his tail pulled.

The light was perfect, and Floyd was too sleepy to put up any objections to my pointing a camera at him.

While he doesn’t like having his picture taken, Floyd has become more affectionate in the past few months. A few nights ago he demanded my attention while I was washing up after dinner, meowing at me insistently until I got down to his level. Then he followed me upstairs, squawked his annoyance that I was taking so long with teeth-brushing and clothes-selecting, and immediately hopped up onto the bed with me when I climbed in. He made a nest of the blankets and was still there the next morning when I woke up.

Kipling is much more of a ham for the camera than Floyd is. He let me snap several dozen shots, all the while squiggling around into cuter and cuter positions.

Last night it was Kipling who slept next to me. I woke up in the middle of the night and found him there, upside-down, his face under my chin, purring like a motor. He reached both front paws out to grab my hand, and I fell asleep again in the midst of giving him a belly rub.

It’s good to be loved by cats.

Kipling, play dead! **BANG**

(No, he doesn’t actually know this trick. But wouldn’t it be cool if he did?)

I found the most adorable pattern for a knitted kitty in one of Eskimimi’s older blog posts, and immediately added it to my favourites list on Ravelry. I might knit a few of these, stuff them with yarn scraps and catnip, and give them to the cats as toys.

Of course, there’s a possibility that they won’t be appreciated; Floyd’s favourite toy is a fur mouse, and Kipling’s is any string that a person is willing to drag around for him. Floyd will entertain himself with the mouse – tossing it up in the air and pouncing on it, carrying it around the house, leaving it in Pirate-Husband’s slippers, and so on. Kipling, on the other hand, only seems to want to play if a person is at the other end of the string. The other day I caught him chasing the shadow of his own tail, whirling around and around but never quite catching it. His efforts built up one heck of a static charge, and when he came over to see what I was laughing at, he zapped his nose on my finger. I felt so bad for him!

Friend Erika and Floyd, presented without comment.

(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 is the final Feline Friday of 2011!

Kipling is snuggliest in the mornings.

It’s my favourite time to spend with him.