Cats and Cat Toys

Like any pet owners Howard and I have spent money on toys for our cat Jeoffry. 

Just as one example there is a large and alarmingly realistic rat. I bought it at Pet Supplies Plus and I think I went up to over $5 for it. Thanks to my German parents who lived through the Great Depression, I have a problem with that. However Jeoffry loves it. (Me, not so much. If I find it in the middle of the floor I toss it back into Jeoffry's box.)

There is also this cat toy that has a ball running around a circular track. Jeoffry loved it for the first week we had it and now we cannot get him interested in it for love or money. That was also from Pet Supplies Plus.

A great and cheap cat toy that is always a hit is the spring. These colored springs come in packages of a dozen or something and the cat will chase them everywhere -- up and down stairs, around the room, through doorways, skidding across the kitchen floor.

However.

Nothing beats free toys!

"For he chases the cork." That is in the poem "My Cat Jeoffry." Jeoffry does indeed chase the cork! And we seem to have an endless number of corks in this house, need I say more.

There are corks and then there are cardboard boxes.

I do some grocery shopping at Gordon's Restaurant Market. When I leave I always try to grab a box from the selection available that Jeoffry will like. Above is the newest model.

It has a square opening that Jeoffry loves! He likes to peer out of it as he is doing in the picture up above. He also has a game he plays with it. He will rocket into the box and shoot a paw out at me. Not just a paw actually. He shoots out his whole front leg!

Ha, ha! One day I will try to get a picture of that! It is not easy because whenever he does that I am just laughing so hard.

The best cat toys in life are free!

Sketching at the beach

 

Yesterday was a day to celebrate. It was almost 80 degrees! 

In Buffalo! In late October!

And so I went to the beach. We have the Pods for this purpose but we did not need them. Instead a group of us just gathered. At our height I believe there were seven of us. Plus strangers with whom we were interacting.

And their dogs!

A big poodle named Hannah came bounding up and ate the last piece of cheese off our cheese board! Then she kept trying to get into my backpack because she knew there was more cheese in there!

The dogs were playing fetch in the water and sailboats kept gliding by. It was a wonderful day off.

It is a challenge to sketch on the beach because the usual things I love to draw are not there. There are no traffic signals or parking meters or goose-neck street lamps or Do Not Enter signs.

Ha, ha! Once my sister Katie suggested I go with her to Allegany State Park where there is beautiful nature. She said, "You can draw there."

I said: "Draw what??"

LOL! Anyway at the beach I come up with sketches like the one pictured above. I did that the other day in the Pod.

Yesterday I sketched some dogs and sailboats and then simply zoned out and breathed the air and watched the sunset. 

It is good to zone out once in a while.

God rested and so should we!

Confessions of a Pod Person

My friend Ryan and I have bought Pods and now we are able to sit out in all weather.

Under all weather! The brand name of the pods is Under the Weather. It is not a perfect name because, you know, when you are under the weather you are sick. The subtitle is better. The pod package announces, "Be There -- Weather Or Not!"

That is accurate. You can be there, weather or not! These are little pop-up tents and as long as you do not mind looking a little silly in them, which we do not, the sky is the limit.

Still our goal in getting the Pods was simple: to go and sit on the beach in them. That is what we have already done because here in Buffalo the temperatures have already dipped. That is a picture of me up above that Ryan took! It shows me drawing in my Pod. 

The pods pop up very easily, almost without any help. You tie them down with a few stakes, which is also easy, even for me. Folding them back up again is more of a challenge but Ryan is helping me learn. There is just a little knack to it and I will acquire that.

As long as I can master that, I can see how useful this will be to me as an artist.

I love to draw, ahem, plein air. That means you are outside, as opposed to looking at a photograph. I am never happier than when I am beholding a scene and getting ready to get it down on paper. There was one day, I remember it was 95 degrees or something, and I was in downtown Buffalo settling down on a scorching bench, and I was totally blissed out because in front of me was this huge Art Deco police station and cars all around it, everything ready for drawing.

And didn't I sit there, all afternoon!

Maybe someone should invent an air-conditioned Pod for those occasions! Meanwhile we have this one. Ryan has reported, and it is true, that even on a chilly day, if the sun is out, the Pod heats up. When we tested them the other day they warmed up even under cloudy skies. We were impervious to wind and rain and that is a wonderful thing. That hat I was wearing in the picture quickly became unnecessary.

I will be able to draw whatever I want!

I can set the thing up in Niagara Square if I feel like it and take another crack at drawing City Hall.

Have Pod. 

Will draw!

From summer to fall

 

Yikes, all at once it is Autumn~!

That ~ symbol ended up there by mistake but I like how it looks so I will leave it there.

Just a few days ago it was warm, sweltering even, and I drew that little sketch up above. Actually the sketch is about a foot long. I drew it in my Long and Narrow sketchbook which I choose to use when I want to have fun.

I did that sketch at Wilkeson Pointe on Buffalo's Outer Harbor. I was there with my friend Ryan and we had noticed how cool these people looked walking on this ridge. They were silhouetted against the sunset and looked like shadows. The woman second from the front was wearing a sari and I did try to get that sari in there. It is fun working in ink because there are no second chances but also you do not erase and fuss over things too much. 

Anyway there it is, my portrait of people walking along the ridge at Wilkeson Pointe!

I like any drawing I did that I can look at and say: That is pretty much what I saw. This drawing does that.

Soon I will be going back to drawing at least some of the time in my car. How things change! The other night I made it to the Outer Harbor but it was, I must admit it, pretty chilly.

Today I wore a scarf when I went walking in the park. I took this picture.

 

 

I met my brother George and he had a knit cap. It was one of those days in Buffalo when you saw people in shorts and people in parkas.

I am working on getting Christmas cards printed! There, I said it ... Christmas.

It is closer than you think!