It's My Dog's World: I Just Live In It

Yarn + Hell's Kitchen tree + impish creators = this

Among the many reasons I haven't updated lately: 

My colleague Gabe Stein and I made a short film about a delightful yarn project in Hell's Kitchen, NYC.   The team calls themselves the Looons--please watch the film to see why.  Luisa and Nicki, the owner of the three cats (the ooos in the name), say that the cats were instrumental in making the tree yarn sculpture you'll see here. Sadly, the cats were not available for filming.  They were probably too busy playing with yarn. :)  Yes, I do think dogs can contribute to yarn projects.  Just not this one.  Also, please go visit the adorable home store Luisa and Nicki run, Domus.  It is eight tons of awesome.

My favorite holiday ever

Credit:  the Proper Pitbull.

Cats in sweaters.

Pitbulls in a Halloween costume competition.

Halloween cannot come often enough for me.

Of Alpha Cats and Rocket Ships

I have a lot to be thankful for. 

Our nice new neighbors asked us to catsit their two babies, one, a frisky young boy who loves the tummy rubs, and the second, a more sedate matriarch who actually hid under the bed the first day I had to feed her.  She soon began greeting me (grudgingly) at the door, but never really warmed to me. Cats are not dogs, for sure.   It was interesting to see how the two cats carved out their very separate spaces (the boy likes heights, the matron, who is a little hefty, likes whatever makes a den).  They...tolerate each other.  Interesting to see this in the animal world.  They don't snuggle, they don't hiss unnecessarily.  He stays by the window sill, and she lies beneath the coffee table, poised on the issues of a cigar magazine.  They've worked it out.

We could learn something from them, if we weren't so busy pretending we weren't like them.

And speaking of Alpha Cats, thank you, thank  you, thank  you Sci-Fi Channel for resurrecting Admiral Helena Cain, the Alphaest Admiral ever to oversee a Battlestar.  (Actress Michelle Forbes calls her "Saddam Hussein in bangs," but that doesn't do justice to her ferocious, nuanced performance.) I've actually been savoring RAZOR, the standalone Battlestar Galactica TV movie, watching it slowly, because I don't want to lose Admiral Cain again...even though I know I must.

Admiral Cain is one of the reasons that while I love Heroes, I LOVE! Battlestar Galactica.   Heroes, as lovely as it's been the last couple of episodes, still has some trouble working its Powerful Woman Paradigm (although none at all with the Hottie Heroines in Short Skirts Paradigm).  The Cain storyline on RAZOR features three flawed and fierce women in the kind of triangle you just don't see in most film or TV shows--sexy and political and heartbreaking.   I don't want it to end.

Someday Robot Cats Will Take Over The World

And that will not be a bad thing.

Check out this CDC lecture on the use of artificial pets in facilitating physical and emotional rehabilitation.  Yes, it's a little "AI," the movie, but it's also a lot Hallmark card smushy, and makes you feel good about the future.   I wish I'd had a fake robot cat to help me through my physical therapy.

For Those of You Whose Cats Rule Their Worlds..

This is my editor and friend Andrea's cat's MySpace page. Check out Nerp.  He is superfantastic!

Reason to Keep Living #497

Ann Richards lives! No, really. The hairdresser of the very funny Susie Felber has named his latest cat after the late great gal politician.  And what a fitting name for the kitty.

Dang this dialup.  I'll post the picture later, or just go here.  Trust me, the cat looks like she should be wearing a leather jacket and riding a motorcycle through miles of dusty Texas road just before she runs a 12-step meeting for prisoners doing hard time.

That does it. The next dog we get is definitely named Molly Ivins.

 

 

 

Success!

 

 

 

Some Cats Walk a Lonely Road...

Like this one:

http://media.putfile.com/My-Fat-Cat-Workin-Out

P.S., I am not endorsing this...but it did make me laugh.

Manhattan Cats

I spent part of my weekend in cat-land, aka Madison Square Garden, where the Cat Fanciers-IAMs Championship took place.  I was, because of the books, more interested in cat agility, described here, than in the formal competition.  But I learned a lot; IAMs had a very good cat behaviorist who talked about strategies for multi-cat families, and I looked at cat carriers and kitty litter containment systems.

But what could be cooler than meeting one of the Army's mascot cats?  Meeting two, both of them hairless and charming as a good venial sin.

Cats I Have Met Lately

It's funny how once you write a book about something, how it sticks in your head.  While writing My Fat Dog, I learned about a study that explored whether you could improve a dog's smarts by feeding him better food and giving him small, structured challenges.  The results were good, even among the dogs who started out as, um, below average.  Feed a beagle antioxidant rich food and make him strain his brain, and he'll respond just like the Tin Man receiving his Doctor of Thinkology.

We're good about the first part.  Every morning Jeff gets up and delights our dog with a different melange of dry food, fruits, veggies, omega 3-rich fish, complete with snappy patter and dramatic pauses.  I swear he has a cooking show in him.  And I'm kind of good about the second part.  I love to train Faith, especially on the street.  It is, I admit, for her good, and also to show people that AmStaff mixes can be, often are, the best dogs in the world.

But her walks, lately, had gotten kind of rote, because of the heat:  3 blocks to the closest park, some squirrel sniffing, and 3 blocks back.  But I felt a little lax. I don't want my dog's brain to shrink, and I haven't taught her how to do crossword puzzles. 

So this week, with the fall air crisp and sunny, we headed down to Pier A, which borders the glorious Hudson River. It's big and grassy and breezy: one of the true rewards of living in Hoboken. I do urban agilty with Faith down there, having her squeeze through empty bike racks, and wiggle through some wacky statues.   Faith was most interested, however, in a homeless woman sleeping on a bench.  She kept heading towards the woman, which surprised me. Faith's usually very respectful of people in that situation, and gives them their space...so I was curious.  So I let her lead me there.

And then I saw it: a lovely white cat sitting in the duffel bag next to the woman, with a bowl of food, sitting untouched in front of her.   The white cat didn't even LOOK at Faith.  Her eyes were all for her sleeping mistress.

To be continued....