This is the most complicated Christmas display that I’ve dared to put up since obtaining two rambunctious cats 13 years ago.
Posts Tagged ‘cats’
As Pictured Below: Winter’s Burden
Posted in As Pictured Below, Photographs, tagged cats, iPhone, iTunes, lake, Photographs, photography, water, winter on November 26, 2009| 1 Comment »
Inspired by fellow blogger SevenDead, I’ve been playing around with TiltShift Maker, an online application that manipulates images to look like model photos.
Inspired by actually being able to remember my iTunes password, I have added CatPaint to my iPhone’s photo arsenal. Happy Thanksgiving indeed.
As Pictured Below: Our House
Posted in As Pictured Below, Cats, Home, Photographs, tagged bathroom, bathtub, budget, cats, decorating, design, HGTV, home, leaks, photograph, plumbing, remodeling, renovation, tiles, zombies on October 12, 2009| 1 Comment »
It’s just not proper homeownership without holes in the floor and exposed plumbing.
Like zombies, renovation projects take on a life of their own.
Window leak + crappy bathtub = tear out the tub to fix leak. We were going to replace it anyway.
Ah, but the floor tiles should go down first to line up properly with the base of the new supershower. And if we’re picking out tile for the floor AND the shower, shouldn’t we be thinking about what the new countertop is going to be made of? And if we’re getting new countertops, we’ll have to have the cabinets refinished.
What? We’re not sure we have cabinet refinishing in the budget anymore?
HGTV, you magnificent bastard. We’re going to have a proper chat one day.
As Pictured Below: Dude
Posted in As Pictured Below, Cats, Photographs, tagged animals, catnip, cats, Doritos, iPhone, kitchen, munchies, photograph, Trader Joe's on August 13, 2009| 1 Comment »
I recently broke out the catnip, hoping to stoke 13-year-old Yang’s appetite. I also added two Double Wide Cat Scratchers from Trader Joe’s to a expansive collection of cat accessories.
Now I have two stoner cats who sleep on their respective cat scratchers for hours at a time until they’re forced to make a mad dash for the kitchen when they hear the refrigerator open.
Anyway, they’re eating better, although I don’t think they should be scarfing down so many Doritos.
As Pictured Below: Entertain Me
Posted in As Pictured Below, Cats, Photographs, tagged animals, cats, iPhone, Nip/Tuck, television, TiltShift Generator, ToyCamera on July 29, 2009| 5 Comments »
Yang has tired of "Nip/Tuck" Season 2. Truly, it has exhausted us all.
One more set of life’s training wheels, gone
Posted in Cats, tagged adulthood, animals, bicycle, cats, childhood, cooking, decisions, father, homemade, kidney failure, letting go, making peace, mother, pets, safety, scars, training wheels, veterinarian, wheels on July 23, 2009| 3 Comments »
Remember training wheels? For me, they were the last bastion of bike safety, and they became more of a security blanket than a training tool. I remember being reluctant to let my dad take them off, until one day I realized that they didn’t seem to be touching the ground anymore. Sure enough, I took a short test drive on a neighbor’s non-training-wheeled bike, and I could totally ride on two wheels.
I could also totally crash on two wheels, as evidenced by the latticework of tiny souvenirs on my knees and elbows.
I’m still removing metaphorical training wheels from my life, some 30 years later.
Two weeks ago, we had one very sick cat. Yang was showing signs of kidney failure, a diagnosis that would have fit his age of 13 years.
I spent four days and nights convincing him to eat and drink. I drove to three supermarkets in search of no-sodium-added tuna. I baked him a chicken and made a salt-free stock. I woke up at 2 a.m. every day to check on him. I made sure my phone never left my side so that the vet could give me the results of the blood tests the minute they came in.
Most surprising of all, I made peace with the situation.
I realized that it was the first time I had truly been in charge of an animal’s care. Sure, I had pets as a child and even as a teenager, but my mother was, in the end, the decision-maker, the one who had to decide on treatments, the one who had to decide when to let go.
It’s not a small thing, deciding when to let go.
In the end, the blood tests came back normal and Yang started eating like a lumberjack again. It does appear that he and his brother have permanently added a couple of servings of baked chicken and homemade broth to their daily menu, but that’s a small price to pay for the return of a healthy cat.
I realize I’m not out of the woods on this forever. I have teenage cats, and they won’t live forever. Pets break your heart, every damn time.
I won’t say that the decisions I’ll be faced with one day will get any easier, but I’m on two wheels now, ready to brave the hills.
As Pictured Below: Watercolor Cat
Posted in As Pictured Below, Photographs, tagged animals, camera, cats, husband, iPhone, photograph, travel on July 20, 2009| Leave a Comment »
I didn’t see this coming: I LOVE the camera on my new iPhone.
I barely get along with the family digital camera, so I didn’t think I’d have much going for this one. It is four shades of AWESOME, though. It’s always at the ready, and I can use the images without dragging out USB cords and the laptop for the transfer process.
As a bonus, it has some very cool special effects – note blogger bbum’s observations and examples of iPhone images shot by watercolor artist Paul Jackson. Movement of the subject or the camera can result in a gorgeous, stylized blur. Of course, it can also result in a simple bad-picture blur, but that’s what the trashcan button is for.
My husband shot the image above with his iPhone and e-mailed it to me while I was out of town for the weekend.
Convenience FAIL, cat care WIN
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged animals, cats, husband, veterinarian on July 10, 2009| Leave a Comment »
I found out the hard way yesterday that my mobile vet isn’t so mobile anymore. He sold his RV since our last visit.
Don’t you hate it when a great, well-thought-out endeavor fails?
I mean, what’s not to love about a mobile vet? For an extra $40, he shows up at the end of your driveway in a sparkling, sterilized RV packed with all the stainless steel instruments and medications that your dog or cat could possibly require – even an X-ray machine. Instead of driving around with my neurotic, yowling cats for 20 minutes, an act sure to cause both a rise in my blood pressure and a stress fight with the spouse, I could pack them in their carriers and walk them 20 feet from front door to RV door. I never told the good doctor, but I would have paid twice the fee to get him to park his RV outside my house.
But no. The one DYI that everybody in this city is apparently willing to do is to pack up their pets and drive them across town.
The one upside to this: I found The Cat Hospital of Madison, which I was extremely impressed with. Dr. Stephanie G. Gandy-Moody is compassionate and analytical, all in one rare package. The staff was superb, and the facilities were gorgeous. Even the clinic cats were fun.
Now if only they’ll buy that RV I’ve got picked out for them.
As Pictured Below: I Can Have What?
Posted in As Pictured Below, Photographs, tagged animals, cats, iPhone, photograph on July 5, 2009| Leave a Comment »
“What is this ‘cheeseburger’ of which you speak, and why aren’t you using standard English?”
25 Things I’ll Admit to in Order to Make the Tagging Stop
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged animals, brother, car, cats, caving, childfree, childhood, coast, coffee, concerts, education, Facebook, friends, hurricane, husband, marriage, Mini Cooper, music, New Orleans, OCD, smoking, travel, weightlifting on February 8, 2009| 2 Comments »
Fine. I gave in. Here are 25 Things About Me. If Facebook can suffer through it, so can you.
- I love coffee. I drink more coffee than anyone knows.
- I drive my dream car, a Mini Cooper S. It’s cute, fast and fun, and more affordable than most people seem to realize.
- I work out with free weights three times a week. A former co-worker who calls his muscle-bound arms the “pythons of death” used to call my arms the “blue runners of death.”
- I can’t wait for warmer weather so I can go caving again. I have never felt stronger and more dexterous than I do when scrambling over giant piles of rock.
- I always thought I’d have dogs, but I have two cats instead. They’re hilarious.
- I judge people based on how they treat animals.
- I’ve always had more male friends than female friends. I may be from Mars instead of Venus.
- My husband is the kind of guy I would be friends with. I’m pretty sure this is why we’re still married.
- I’ve been to England, France, Honduras, Nicaragua and Mexico.
- I have no children. This is neither an accident nor a tragedy. I’m cool with other people having kids though, and love my nieces and nephew.
- Hurricane Katrina flooded a third of my house. It’s barely worth mentioning compared to the damage other people had. That said, rising water and high winds still give me a little punch in the gut.
- I’m still pissed off about what happened to the people of New Orleans.
- Since childhood, I’ve had a recurring dream in which I had to walk across a yard while avoiding snakes of every type and size every few feet. That dream has been replaced by one in which water is rising in my back yard and I’m trying to move things higher in the house.
- I’ve never told anyone about No. 13.
- I had a casual smoking habit for about six years in high school and college. Nasty habit? Sure, but I miss it and wish cigarettes weren’t so bad for me.
- I miss clove cigarettes the most. A friend tells me it’s because I’ve always aspired to be Eurotrash.
- I’m really proud of my little brother for being such an awesome husband and father.
- I’m not sarcastic ALL the time.
- I decorate with objects that I love, which range from an old Royal typewriter to tea tins.
- The first concert I ever attended was Bon Jovi.
- I’ve seen Metallica in concert six times.
- I exhibited multiple signs of OCD when I was a kid. I remember wishing somebody would notice so that they could figure out what was wrong with me AND hoping that nobody would notice that there was something wrong with me.
- I think that my remaining obsessive-compulsive tendencies make me a better copy editor, writer and coder.
- I took Spanish in high school and French in college. When I try to speak either language I end up with a mishmash of both. Sacre gato!
- I’m pursuing my master’s degree in English mostly because I really enjoy the classes.
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