Ran across the stories about the Designer Cat Habitat, and ever since have been surfing for ideas on how to make my home more cat-friendly. I've also been looking for ideas for cat furniture that don't involve the usual boring geometric shapes covered with rope & carpet.
Below are some links to stuff. Unfortunately, most of them are commercial sites. Please don't take this as any kind of endorsement or encouragement to buy anything; I just want to show examples of designs I found interesting or curious.
In fact, I encourage you to build you own cat furniture. You can start getting ideas here.
I got some ideas from these:
This is innovative; ugly as all get out, but it still scores points for being able to make something out of next to nothing.
I don't really like this either; but {1} no rope or carpet, and {2} it would be easy to keep clean if cat hair allergies are an issue.
And it might look cool if, say, you wanted to create an indoor rock garden, maybe with a water feature, some tufts of tall cat grass, and some boulder~shaped kitty pillows... is that the theme to Ground Force I hear?
Hey look, no rope or carpet.
Designed particularly with fat cats in mind...
The KittyPod, or the ArchiPod, would be excellent for the sophisticated loft-owner with minimalist tastes. Make your own, you've got cardboard.
And then there are the igloos. You can make one of those. And this is for you Sandman fans. Looks simple enough. The baby grand, however, looks daunting...
Bringing new meaning to the word housecat: If you can't afford a small house for yourself, you can have a small house for your kitty. Literally.
I can see the appeal if I were filming a short student film about a fifty foot feline, but other than that they're just a wee bit too prissy for me. Still, they're a hell of a lot better than plain old carpet & rope... carpet and rope, carpet and rope, bloody everywhere, carpet and rope...
But if you've got a lot of carpet & rope, and you like to make dollhouses, then maybe this will inspire you. Yes, that is an Airstream. Make a cactus and a pueblo to go with it, throw in a little siisal~wrapped ox~skull, put Georgia O'Keefe posters on the wall and pretend you & the cats have retired to New Mexico.
And you may as well try your hand at making a litterbox house while you're at it.
'Twould make a good collection of cat furniture for people who feel guilty about keeping their cats indoors. "Why, it's like having a whole neighborhood inside your home."
If you like the idea of bringing the outside inside, take a look at Jungle Rooms. For the big cat in your little cat.
More faux fauna: I thought these were pretty cool... that is, until I saw THESE. Check em out: outside; inside. Massive.
Embarassing though it is to admit, while the tiny houses do not really appeal to me, this scaled~down furniture really does.
{I don't care what you say, it is not dolly furniture. It is not dolly furniture. La la la, I can't hear you, la la la.}
With this stuff in the house, the cats will finally break out the cocktail shakers, martini glasses and Rat Pack music they've been hiding all these years. Now if only I could get them to wear the little Dean Martin tuxedos...
Wouldn't mind having a Mousehat~size version of this one myself.
~ ~ ~
In the end, I'll probably cobble together a feline~friendly environment with whatever packrat~hoarded materials I have on hand, along with anything I can scrounge or pick up cheap.
But hey, it's nice to dream...
I've been idly planning to build a massive cat tree/kitty entertainment center. The rather victorian concept of a "cat aquarium" got into my head and amused me for a while; so I started looking up Latin language resources to see if I could come up with a cleverer name than "The Felinarium"
For some reason, I wasn't surprised to discover Cattus Petasatus. However, I was surprised to see Winnie Ille Pu (Semper Ludet), Grinchus and Harrius {not to mention Hari and Haris}.
Now all I can think of is Shakespeare's Julius Caesar as written by A.A. Milne.
Friends, Romans, Countrymen, Lend me your Honeyjars, said Poohlius. Yon Tigger has a Lean and Hungry Look...
{I've had this little bit of old book in my head for a while; I was finally inspired to post thanks to this inspired post.}
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"The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there."
I love old books for this very reason. Normally, I am prevented from peeking into the minds of other cultures by the language barrier; with old books, I can read about a foreign society in its own words.
Chronocentrism is probably the last remaining socially acceptable prejudice; and I have to admit that what I enjoy most about old books is laughing, or cringing, at how people used to behave...
We have at home a set of books from 1922, entitled The Popular Science Library. It has many entertaining little bits of what was then up~to~date knowledge which are now woefully out~of~date. {One of my favourites is the chapter devoted to the exciting new discovery of Piltdown Man!}
This one has stuck in my mind, and not because it was entertaining. Though the philosophy is no longer politically correct, I suspect it is still completely relevant to my everyday life...
I'll never be able to think of the phrase "a good old~fashioned work ethic" in quite the same way again:
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Popular Science Library, Vol. XV
Anthropology ~ The Science of Man and His Ancestors
by Loomis Havemeyer
Instructor in Anthropology and Economic Geography
Shefield Scientific school, Yale University
P.F. Collier & Son Company
New York
Copyright 1922
"The one thing that causes civilization to develop is labor, and the thing that causes labor to be expended is want. If wants can be satisfied without labor, there is nothing to bring forth energy, and civilization will not develop." [pp.125-6]
"History shows us that people from the north who have gone south with the idea of developing the tropics have soon found that the climate was such that they could do very little manual labor themselves. Therefore, the only thing to do was to try to get the natives to work. This they did more or less willingly at first, in order to obtain the beads and mirrors and knives and bright colored fabrics. But it did not take them long to own as many of these as they could use, and they stopped working. Then the whites tried paying them in money, but this meant nothing to them, for it only purchased either the things that they had or the things that they did not want. Next slavery was attempted and this worked fairly well, for with overseers the people were compelled to labor. Laws were passed, however, that prevented this, and so, as a last resort, firearms and liquor were given to the natives in payment or labor. The whites soon found out that guns in the hands of the natives were not very safe and they were taken away. This left only liquor and opium. The natives were never given enough to satisfy them, and so at last commodities had been found for which they would put forth any energy. This constant application of "fire water" and "dope" resulted in a huge death rate, for strong alcohol and opium plus the heat of the tropics are always fatal after a short time. Thus it is clear why no very high civilization has developed under the equator." [pp.126-7]
... which... presumably... is a shame ...?
That paragraph almost could have been a criticism of the process of colonization... if only they had made a point of saying, "and that was clearly unethical" instead of wrapping up with "and that's why the tropics remain uncivilized."
I just can't imagine any modern~day text referring to slavery as something that "worked fairly well" until it was outlawed. Gosh, if only slavery had been allowed to continue; we might have been able to develop a civilization without having to resort to enslaving people with drugs and alcohol. Oh, damn that accursed tropical climate...
"Tropical peoples that live in productive environments are satisfied with the food that they can collect, or, if they want more, very little energy will give it to them. They need few clothes and they are perfectly satisfied if they have a shelter that will keep out the rain and the blazing sun." [p.126]
"In the temperate region the climate calls forth energy and labour. There is always a reward for work done. Man has ever-increasing wants and he knows how to satisfy these. He does not live from hand to mouth, for he can raise vast crops in a few months to support him during the rest of the year. Since the beginning he has been laying up the results of experience, of trials and failures, until he has built up the great civilization that has spread into other parts of the world. [p.127]
{Did anybody notice how the word "Man" is used not just as a synonym for "Mankind" but also for "White Civilized Society"? Eeek ~~ how insidious is that?}
I'd love to be able to put here a quote/link to the George Carlin monologue about how the the US likes to free people and then whip a little industry on them {"...so they can enjoy the same benefits of civilization that WE have ~ cough hack wheeze."}. Sadly, the closest I can find as a reference to it online is this... Anybody know where I can find the MP3?
I can't even begin to explain why the above quotes perturb me... I have in my muddled thoughts a jumbled mish~mash of stuff I've heard before, like "TV is the opiate of the people", "advertising is propaganda", "rent is theft", "credit card debt is economic enslavement", "consumerism is fabricated from false needs", "in post~slavery America, they lynch black minds", "We had to destroy the village in order to save it" and "Why be satisfied with paradise, when you can be increasingly dissatisfied with civilization?"
Is our modern-day economy still propelled by the philosophy that labor is only motivated by want, thus to stimulate desire is to stimulate the economy? How Freudian...
It's almost enough to make a Mousehat want to study economics to try to figure out the meaning of it all...
A dear friend gave me an early birthday gift: a magnetic poetry set, the Cat Lover edition.
When I got home that night {in the wee hours of the morning} I opened the set up at once; plopped all the magnets atop an old metal box for photographic slides, sat in bed and played with 'em for an hour. Later that morning, after some sleep, I transferred 'em to the fridge and played with 'em 'til noon; that has to be the longest I've ever stood in front of my fridge without the door open.
I have an inordinate fondness for my own poetry, bordering on the Vogon {both the inordinateness and the poetry, that is}; so I can't resist blogging the poor little blighters.
Since there is as of yet no authoritative body to which I can be reported for having commited Cruelty to Poetry, and since my readership is mercifully below scant, I believe I may indite with impunity.
Someday a group of people may band together to stop me; perhaps they'll call themselves something like the People's Parliament for Promoting the Protection & Preservation of Proper Poetry (PPPPPPP), or some such. Maybe some Superhero of Scansion will head up a Poetic Justice League; or some Self-Appointed Vigilante* will crusade to save the world from poetasters.
And then I'll stop.
'Till then, if you can't bear to see poems being so cruelly treated, then you'll just have to look away.
~
* "When they speak of him aloud... they call him The Laureate. But he just signs himself 'Bob'."
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~ ~ ~
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{i} still life with cat
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hair . ball
no . not . my . chair . no
.
wild . hunter . stalk.s . a . pillow
pounce . swat . cough
sofa . is . tricky
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how . do.es . fur
sense . color
.
pad.d.ing . soft.ly ... grace . my . lap ... almost . above . affection ... suffer . me . to . scratch . your . ear
give . in ... with . a . whisker . stroke . kiss ... ... sleep.y . face
leap . across . at . that . short . gift . of . string ... ... ... live . full . life
... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... nip . on . by
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{ii } note to self
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after . litter
wash . feet
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I
never
did
break
this
purr
.
mischevous
play
mice
though
wonderful
are
soon
quiet
.
... ... ... ... ... curious . dream
... ... ... ... I . ate . yarn . birds
... ... ... drank . heaven . out . of . a . fish . bowl
... ... special . little . can.s ... only . pure . mouse
... could . feel . like . home
.
{iii} unity of purpose
light.ly . place.d . paw
... up
must . feed . feline
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Boss has threatened bust me down to just answering phones.
What, and take away all the paperwork that you give me grief about? say it isn't so!
Had to bite my tongue to stop from saying, Please. Please do.
You see, I'd received instructions from Boss. So I FYI'd the relevant co-workers by email about what those instructions were.
It made sense at the time; but then, I function from a philosophy of Transparency.
Boss now thinks I was insinuating things in my emails.
"Why are you telling everybody these things? You don't have to tell everybody I told you to do that! Just do it! It's nobody's business what I told you you to do. I don't like what you are insinuating. You are being a pain! I will take your work away from you and you will only answer the phones!"
I think other people, people who have more experience playing the Corporate Political Darwinism game, would tutt-tutt me on having had such a heinous lack of discretion.
And that's the only reason I feel bad. Not that I feel like I did anything intrinsically wrong, but I feel guilty for being incompetent at office politics. Because I'm sure that if I just put in a little effort, I could improve...
Some people have a little angel & devil on their shoulders trying to guide them one way or another; I've got this little corporate suit on my shoulder, saying,
Listen, if you really wanted to, you could think the doublethink & speak the doublespeak. Hell, if it's possible for every human being to sink into the morass of questionable ethics, then why the hell can't you? What the hell is your problem that you can't connect with your basic humanity? Who do you think you are? Mother Theresa? You're just being lazy. This is the reality of life in the 21st century, and you'd better get with the program.
{changes to a wheedling tone}
"Why can't you just tell them what they want to hear? You don't have to mean it. They just want to be happy, just like you. What can't you just go through the motions and make them happy?
Up there with the age-old questions of "Why are we here?" and "How did Life begin?" and "Who is this God person, anyway?" should be included this one, because I've heard enough people ask it:
"Isn't there some way of making a living that doesn't slowly crush the spirit out of you?"
I know these jobs exist.
I'm going to go find them.
CoWorker came in this morning carrying many many bags.
He was also carrying a plush stuffed animal, a neon green alien with big black cat's eyes; but because his hands were full, he'd shoved the 14-inch plush alien stuffy down the front of his pants.*
He was so nonchalant about it that my first thought was,
One of his kids must have stuffed it in there while he was in a distracted moment; and, because he is a very busy individual with a lot on his mind, he has simply failed to notice the 14-inch plush alien stuffy in his pants.**
And initially, I was reluctant even to let my eyes fall upon it, let alone mention it, lest it be a source of embarassment for both of us.***
But poor taste prevailed. Who could resist a Mae West moment?
I daresay, he actually seemed relieved that someone had finally broken the ice about it.****
~ ~ ~
* ... at least, I'm assuming it's because his hands were full...
** In fact, a one-sentence description of his personality would probably go something like, "He is the type of man who would not notice he was sharing his pants with a plush alien stuffy."
*** Your fly is open. And your plush alien stuffy is showing.
**** "Why, yes, this IS a 14-inch plush alien stuffy down my pants, thank~you for asking. It's part of my recovery from the surgery / my twelve~step program / my strategy to get promoted / my side career as a public advertising space / Bring~Your~Kid~To~Work Day."
AGAIN with the Classic Boss Behaviour today.
Yesterday, there was a situation with a client. So something had to be done.
In theory, the thing we were to do was "contrary to company policy" * ~~ but it was the kind of thing we do occasionally do, given such extenuating circumstances. And Boss is well aware of that.
Now, I understand & accept that Boss has the right of veto in any situation. That's fine.
What I can't understand & accept is that Boss seems to believe that I flout company policy just because I think I can get away with it.
Apparently, I am the sole instigator of this; and I did it, not because it's been approved by a departmental supervisor due to our company having messed up, but because I just enjoy being a smartass.
So Boss has threatened me with a written warning.
And then Boss delegated someone else to write that warning.
That Someone has not written me a warning.
I'm not sure whether to take that as a good sign or not.
~ ~ ~
* Theoretical because, unfortunately, none of this "company policy" is actually written down anywhere; so in practical terms, company policy is whatever Boss makes it out to be, whenever Boss wants to invoke it.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Addendum: Have received no official word of any kind re: head on or off chopping block. But That Someone has implied that it is out from under the axe:
What's the name of our company? That Someone says to me, says he. And I tell him.
You wouldn't like to call a friend? That Someone says to me, says he.
That's my final answer, I says to him, says I.
You win, says That Someone. You get to work here another day.
Oh, says I. That's good to know.
{Still, thinks I, I'd prefer that in writing...}
Boss is eavesdropping on our phone conversations again.
How do I figure these things out? Well, it's hard not to notice it when Boss calls you immediately after {or, my favourite, during} the call to tell you what you ought to say to the client.
I can also see, via my phone apparatus, what lines are busy & whose phones are engaged. When Boss's phone is engaged, but not on an outside line, and all the outside lines & internal calls are accounted for, then it's a good bet that Boss is listening in.
So now, if there is even the merest hint of a question about how the call ought to proceed, I just give the call directly to Boss.
It's just simpler.
Most days, it takes me bloody forever just to write simple sentences. "Writer's block" doesn't quite convey what it feels like; 'twould be so much more puissant to say it feels like {you should excuse the, no pun intended, expression} mental constipation...
I have this image of my right & left brain hemispheres clenched together like little wrinkly butt cheeks, futilely straining to express thought...
... oh, well, gosh, if that's not a Freudian slip indicating what I subconsciously think about my mind's creative product...
Must find another metaphor... or consume more intellectual roughage...
Grrr.
Boss.
Grrr.
Ok. Background:
Boss has access to everyone's email accounts, and reviews them occasionally.
This is bad.
English is not Boss' first language, but Paranoia is; so Boss is apt ~ nay, inevitably bound ~ to misinterpret information in the worst possible way... I'd say, the worst possible way conceiveable, but in fact it is inconceiveable. Of course we always try to anticipate & prevent trouble by making sure that the wording we use in our email is non-inflammatory; but Boss still comes up with the most inane accusations that broadside you from out of nowhere.
It boggles the mind and beggars belief, it truly does.
So.
There was an email which initiated a chain of discussion. It focused on steps to be taken in the future regarding a customer issue; thus, the subject heading of the email began with the word Future.
This email got forwarded back and forth, & it eventually got to me when the time came for the issue to be dealt with, whereupon the issue was resolved. Two months later (i.e., now} another related issue came up, and the email was recirculated. And all through both email chains, the heading remained the same:
Re: Future blah blah blah.
This morning I got a phone call asking me why I was doing paperwork for problems that hadn't happened yet.
"You're pretty smart, to know when things are going to go wrong before they happen, eh?"
Boss claimed to have six {and, oddly, was quite adamant about that number, too} emails from me to other people with the incriminating word "Future" in the subject heading.
Boss was convinced that each email indicated six separate incidents of me doing paperwork before the problems occured; thus I was accused on six separate counts of willfully & wastefully providing a client with services which they neither required nor deserved ~~ the implication being, this amounted to insurrection and blatant theft on my part.
This is a classic example of how Boss gets a paranoid impulse, and then all incoming information becomes distorted in Boss' perception to support that paranoia.
In fact, I only sent four emails with that subject heading: two recently, when the second issue came up ~~ and a couple others two months ago, one of which was addressed to Boss who at the time did not see fit to reply.
Evidently, the word "future" did not set off alarm bells two months ago; but for some inexplicable reason, this week it did.
That, and the fact that the most recent email chain contains six emails altogether, inclines me to think that Boss is actually referring only to the most recent chain.
How Boss jumps to such conclusions yet evades me; and that makes it difficult to explain the obvious.
I did make an effort to point out & explain the concept of the prefix "Re:".
Didn't bother to attempt to explain the concept of time passing, as I thought that was beyond my skills.
I think I got through, as I am still currently employed {fingers crossed}
However, the person who originated the second email chain ~~ not the same person who started the original chain ~~ has since been sacked.
Don't know if the word "future" had anything to do with it.
Side gripe: Boss obsessively checks emails for incriminating evidence of malfeasance by employees; yet ignores urgent emails addressed to Boss directly!
Grrr.
Boss.
Grrr.
Am hoping to take a soapstone carving course at my local cultural center; am hoping there will be enough time, space & money when the date for registration arrives.
If I go to a stonecarving course in the upscale neigborhood, the cost is approximately $500ish ~~ but then, you get to keep the stone you've carved.
If I go to this stonecarving course in my neigborhood, the cost is approximately $100ish ~~ but then, you're only loaned a stone on which to practice your carving.
So now I go shopping for soapstone.
A local Omer DeSerres will sell me soapstone ~~ it'll cost me $42, about $50 after taxes, for a 4x4x6 block.
Or, I can buy the exact same size for $25 from Sandy Cline in Lakefield, Ontario. After tax & FedEx, it'll come out to about $37.
But Mr. Cline sources his soapstone from a quarry, Les Pierres Stéatites, which is not too far from here {by vehicle, understood}.
I think it's reasonable to assume that Mr. Cline would sell his soapstone at a markup from what it costs him from the quarry; and I've heard that one can guestimate a 100% markup between source & outlet. If that's true, then:
1) Les Pierres Stéatites provides relatively inexpensive soapstone; and
2) Omer DeSerres is selling soapstone at approximately a 350% markup. Evil, nasty retailer.
However, any plan to get it directly from the quarry presumes I'm able to
[i] foot the bill for vehical rental, gas & expenses,
[ii] convince Boyfriend to drive, and
[iii] mentally & fiscally write it off as either a wee vacationette for two, or a really really really long distance to travel for our traditional weekend breakfast*
...and I can't guarantee that any of these are within my power.
So I'll probably order it from Mr. Cline.
~ ~ ~
* Coffee up front w/ cream & sugar, two eggs over easy w/ sausage & hash browns, and toast ~ white bread for him & brown bread for me.
I wonder if it's worth seeing whether they do it any differently in Saint~Pierre~de~Broughton?
Finally had the opportunity to listen to some old records I'd picked up from various junk/antique/secondhand shops.
One record was pressed in Ireland in the '50s; it was the soundtrack to a movie released by the Irish equivalent to our National Film Board. The movie was (is?)about the Easter Uprising, the quashed rebellion which was a crucial step towards the civil war(s) fought over Irish independance.
The musical style of the soundtrack is a strange hybrid.
On the one hand, it is yer classic military cadence, in yer full orchestral arrangement ~~ as if to say, take this movie seriously!! Feel the stirring patriotism!! Our composer has a respectably proper conservatory education, and don't you forget it!!
On the other hand, because it's a movie about the birth of modern Ireland, there are points at which the music has a very pronouced and self-conscious lilt. It seems an akward afterthought, as if the composer had a pretty good idea of what was expected of military music, a vague idea of what Irish music ought to sound like, and no clue how to integrate them both.
It's also the poetic connotation of the orchestra that throws me. From what little I've read about the Easter Uprising, I'm inclined to say that "well orchestrated" is not an expression I'd use to describe it; and yet, there it is.
And it's just a wee bit dull...
But I told you all that lot to tell you this:
At the beginning of side two, there is a drumbeat which sounds distinctly like
danh, danh, danh, dum de danh, dum de danh
~~ and in the same instant I:
{1} thought ...Irish Stormtroopers?!? and
{2} realized that my point of reference for military music is the soundtrack of the original Star Wars trilogy.
.
Luke ~ I'm yer Da.
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I'm sure that must have been done by some Irish political satire group somewhere... but who?
anyone? anyone?