When the cat bites, when the bee stings

 Howard, the guy I married, has been doing daily vlogs. He does not call them vlogs, or video logs as I would. You know me, I cannot say blog. I must say Web lot!

Anyway, Howard calls his daily video logs just by their opus numbers. He is now up to Opus 5.

Opus 5 does not interest me too much. It is about pizza. Men will always chow down their pizza and there is nothing that anyone can do about that. Well, I have an Amish chicken in the oven tonight so if Howard filled up on his pizza, that's fine, I will eat this chicken all on my own over the next few days.

However back to Howard and his opus numbers.

My favorite is Opus 2!

I linked to it up above. I think it should go viral.

That moment when Jeoffry just lunges at him and bites him! I cannot stop laughing.

Jeoffry really does not hurt you when he bites you. It just looks so dramatic and that Howard caught it on film is amazing.

It bodes well for Howard's video log, I will say that.

I have subscribed!

Cats Without Vanity

Cats can be vain. They are famous for that. There was one time when My Cat Jeoffry got upset when he was jumping from the mantel and stumbled and landed awkwardly. He could not stand that I was laughing at him so he took a swipe at me.

I said, "Don't take it out on me that you're a klutz!"

I still laugh about that!

However there are times when cats are without vanity.

That is when they are asleep!

Fig. A is Jeoffry up above. I took that picture today. It was hot and Jeoffry stretches out when it is hot in all kinds of odd and unflattering poses. He also enjoys sleeping in the shade of furniture.

Here is a closeup of his face.

Another shot.

And there is this from the other day. I sent this to Howard and he gave it a giant thumbs up.

How could you not give that a thumbs up?

So cute.

No vanity!!

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!

Catnap

"For there is nothing so sweet as his peace when at rest."

That is a line I love from "My Cat Jeoffry."

Above is My Cat Jeoffry asleep on an armchair in the living room. I have these two beautiful red armchairs I was not appreciating on his account. One was upstairs well protected from Jeoffry by piles of stuff. Another, not matching the first but similar, was downstairs, but it was covered by an old quilt so Jeoffry would not claw it.

Finally a few weeks ago I said, I will bring these chairs out into the light.

Probably they will have a short lifespan but meanwhile I may as well enjoy them!

I have reason to be concerned because very early on after we got Jeoffry, we had to bring an armchair out to the curb. He had absolutely gutted it. Such was the damage that the garbage men stopped in their duties and just laughed openly. I observed them.

They understood: A cat lives here!

So far, though, the armchairs do not seem to have aroused the obsession in Jeoffry that the earlier chair did. He claws them now and then but not with any real commitment.

He does like to sleep on the one chair.

"For there is nothing so sweet as his peace when at rest."

Let us hope he remains at rest!

Color and light

For some reason I like doing art.

I use the term loosely. I do not have any pretentions as an artist. But late at night, or of an afternoon when I have been busy with work most of the day, it is fun to sit down with watercolors and relax. What is it about watercolors? They are just so cheap and easy.

Especially cheap. I have this $5 watercolor set I have been working off of forever. That is it in the picture above! I also have a sneaking affection for oil pastels because they, too, are cheap. That masterpiece in the sketchbook visible in thePain back on the right was done with oil pastels.

Not only that but they were oil pastels I purchased in Tupperware at a garage sale! I think I paid a quarter. The brand is Loew-Cornell, which despite the patrician name is made in China, let's not kid ourselves.

I remember my mom telling me at that garage sale that buying the pastels was worth it just to get the Tupperware! LOL! Anyway, those are the pastels that painted that picture in the picture.

HOWEVER. Once at another garage sale I bought a little wooden box of oil pastels of the Van Gogh brand. Van Gogh is not an exalted brand. Looking it up, I see it is a "student brand." However. sets of 10 or something (mine has 15) go for a cool $30 or something. So when I get better at oil pastel I will let myself use the Van Gogh pastels instead of the Loew-Cornells.

I will be the Leonard Pennario of pastels!

Jeoffry also enjoys art.

Good boy! Good boy!!

We are artists!

The cat and the tree

I put up my tree on Sunday. It was Gaudete Sunday! That is THE day to put up your tree.

All kinds of people put up their trees. I saw it on Facebook. Jeoffry assisted me in putting up my tree as you can see in the photo above.

After it was up I sent this photo to Howard who put it up on Facebook.

OK, well, things are not perfect. But we are moving into the season!

The day you put up the tree is always one of the happiest days of the year. The day you take it down is, I am sorry, one of the saddest. I hate to take down the Christmas tree! One of these years I will just not do it. It will stay up until next year. Some of my Facebook friends have already taken that route.

I should just leave it up all year! I am a grown-up and this is America.

And Jeoffry would love it!

Jeoffry in the jungle

It is hard not to laugh when you come home and your cat is lounging on your shoes.

Jeoffry had found my sandals under the dining room table and was stretched out on them.

It is funny to try to think how a cat thinks, not that you will ever understand it.

One morning last week I got up early, before it was light, because I had work to do. I made my way downstairs to make coffee. Then I went looking for the cat.

He was in the front room, staring out at the dark garden. God knows what he saw there. But he must have seen something. Because when I reached out to pet him he jumped out of his skin. Then he leapt off his perch and backed up, staring at me.

He did not hiss. Sweet Jeoffry, he never hisses or growls. But he looked at me as if I were some kind of threat. He did not seem to understand who I was. It took him a good 10 seconds.

I was thinking: That is a clue to how he thinks.

He thinks he is in the jungle!

It was almost like getting a clue as to how Leonard Pennario's mind worked. A foreign being. I would look for clues.

Wild!

A bag of bargains

Son of a sea cook, I fell behind posting! We just had Talk Like a Pirate Day, hence the expression.

The cat was the problem. I could not get to the computer where I usually checked in because it is in a room where the cat is not allowed. There is too much trouble for the cat to get into including scratching my Pennario records and eating my tapes.

Ergo, no Weblog. We remedy that today with a trip to the Clinton-Bailey Market.

I went with my friend Jacquetta. As I told her myself, she kind of cramped my style but that is a good thing. Un-cramped, I buy way too much stuff. As it was, I did manage to fill the larder to overflowing. I bought ...

$5 worth of tomatoes, actually a generous basket.

$3 for beets with greens attached. That is a treat I love.

$3 for cauliflower.

$2 for a big Savoy cabbage.

$2 for a green cabbage. I am always eating cabbage for I am a kraut.

$2.50 worth of apples. Meaning, I split a half bushel ($5) with Jacquetta. They are an apple I do not know if I have mentioned yet. They are Honeycrisp!

And they are delicious. I picked one out of the sack and then Jacquetta did and we were munching these Honeycrisps for the next hour or something. One apple is a meal!

I packed a lot of this haul into a red Savers bag and brought it home and as soon as I unpacked, the cat crawled in. He is our bargain cat and so he crawled into the bargain bag! That is our orange Tom at the top of the post. I caught him yawning.

The cat then lay down in the depths of the Savers bag and let it close over his head. And he went to sleep. And I worked on my book. Peace!

And catch-up time.

Finally.

Adventure at the vet

Today Howard took me to the vet! Well, me and the cat. Which, by the way, I was able to mention the cat in the paper. It is news!

In the waiting room it was like "All Creatures Great and Small." The small was our sweet tabby and the great was a gigantic Labrador. He was named Diesel and he was like a zoo animal. Howard snapped the above picture of me and my new friend Diesel.

Here is a selfie Howard took of himself and the cat.

What a joyous day this was. Our orange tabby was pronounced very healthy! And he has a microchip proclaiming that he is ours.

At first he did not want to come out of the carrier. He got all stiff and they had to drag him out. But they weighed him and listened to his heart and admired his teeth and, most importantly, gave him treats. They said he is really a big kitten. He is about 9 months old.

We were guessing he was young by the way he chases his tail and pounces on things and whips around the house and sticks his paws under doors and down drains. And sure enough.

Now all he needs is a name and surely that will come to us.

My friend Susan at work suggested Cheezit. I was kind of pushing Frampton because at first, when he got to our house, he was kind of exhausted for a day or two. But then, like Frampton, he came alive.

Of course the biographer of Leonard Pennario should not have a cat named Frampton because of how Pennario hated rock music. Prudently Howard said no to that name.

There is also Tigger which is what the cat was called at its foster home before he joined us. And Tiger, suggested by my little nephew Georgie, which was funny because I had been thinking that name, too.

Long story short, right now the cat is documented at the vet as Orangey because that was the orange tabby cat who acted in "Breakfast at Tiffany's" ...



 ... and "The Incredible Shrinking Man."

The good news is, Orangey, or whoever he is, is ours.

And he is fine!

The pick of the litter

My friend Michelle got to meet our cat. Above is a picture I took of them together.

It is a most relaxing sight for a Monday! Would that we could live like this every day, playing with cats and constructing toys with yarn and feathers.

The cat and I are getting into a schedule during the times when I am home with him. There are times when he is following you everywhere and you are tripping over him. But there are other times when he naps or plays on his own for hours and that is when I can do the Pennario thing.

Still a few thing are not worked out such as how to pay less for kitty litter.

I already have a coupon envelope for cat stuff and it has some pretty good discounts on food and stuff. But this kitty litter is like toilet paper. The price is frustrating. It should not be $6 for 21 pounds which was about what I have been paying at Wegmans. I stopped at Big Lots over the weekend and I may have beaten that price. But not by much. We are talking about $7 for 28 pounds. Still nothing to gloat over.

I want to pay, oh, $1 or $2, for that 28 pounds of cat litter. Any ideas? 

Anyone know how you can get dirt dirt cheap?

The hep cat

Howard and I cannot get over the new tabby. We do not forget the old one but the orange one is unique and beautiful. And so entertaining! We have had it almost a week.

We love taking pictures of it like the one up above. That is the cat on top of the Steinway!

Here are the funniest things it has done so far. I will chronicle them the way I chronicle Pennario.

1. The cat jumped up on the bathroom sink while I was washing my face, and stuck its paw down the drain, like a plumber.

2.Whenever there is a door closed to it, the cat sticks a paw under the door. Then maybe he sticks two paws under. At the same time he has his head down to the floor so he can squint under the door with one eye.

This is unbelievable for people who are not prepared for it. They see this orange paw under the door and they say, "What is that??"

3. There are toys the cat likes. One of them is this bouncy little spring. The cat bats it and chases it up and down the stairs, doing somersaults and flipping around from its back to its belly. Once when it had the spring on level ground he suddenly abandoned it and went into his cat carrier. And he sat there.

And sat there.

He yawned.

Then in a split second he shot out of the cat carrier and pounced on the spring.

That is smart reasoning! The cat was thinking: The prey will think I have lost interest in it. It will think I am resting. It will let down its guard. But then I will pounce!

Which it did!

This is one smart creature.

Something tells me that this winter, I will not have to worry about mice.

It will look like this!

The magic camera

Last Sunday when I dropped off Dorothy after church she invited me to stop and look at her garden. She offered me this huge flower! Above is a picture of her holding it.

I have a new 'phone and it takes it into its head sometimes to adjust my pictures. The camera imbues the pictures occasionally with extra atmosphere.

With which, Dorothy's garden. It looks like a picture out of Architectural Digest!

And here was a picture I snapped of a streetcar downtown. It looks like a vintage postcard. There must have been some button I pushed to give these pictures these frames.

Perhaps I should take some pictures of my house and hope I mistakenly push that same button. Perhaps I should do the same thing with all the pictures of Leonard Pennario I am using for my book. Well, I do not have to do that. He always looks pretty good in the pictures. As does our new cat.

But he is another story.

For another day!

Keeping tabs on the tabby

I have figured out that Howard's and my cat is a tabby cat.

It is an 18th century term for tiger cat! I read somewhere that the term dates to the 1770s which means Mozart could have run across a tabby cat. Thomas Jefferson surely had one. It is funny, you know, to think that today's cats are descendants from the cats back then.

It takes pretty cats to make pretty music, as Lester Young said. That is why Pennario was a great pianist.

Anyway, our cat. It is not the one in the picture above but it almost could be. Our cat has a little more orange. Otherwise it seems typical of tabby cats. It is a Mackerel Tabby, also known as a tiger cat. And when it is sleeping it looks like this picture.

What a beautiful kind of cat! Tabby is not a breed, though. It is just a description. From reading up on things I believe there is no way to determine what breed of cat ours is. They just seem like cats that are everywhere. Good thing, too, because tabbies are supposed to be very smart and also very cuddly and not aloof as cats are supposed to be. That is our cat! Googling around I saw that tabbies like to lie in their owners' laps. And if you let them into your bed they will sleep with you.

Because they are so loving they are known as "the dogs among cats." They have the letter "M" on their forehead which folklore says is the blessing of the Virgin Mary.

Whatever, we got a good cat.

A tabby!

The grasshopper and the cat

Taste of Buffalo, which took over downtown last weekend, left our cat out of sorts. I do not know if I have mentioned we have a cat. It is a stray who adopted us! It is the Bean Alley Cat because it came in from Bean Alley. That is not our cat pictured above. But our cat has similar coloring. It is a beautiful sort of tiger cat.

My sister Katie was adopted also by a stray cat. Here is a file photo of Howard with her cat, Jinx. That is my brother Tony asleep in the background.

Anyway. Our Alley is recovering now but for a couple of days she was acting sort of zonked.

I think it was the noise and the madding crowd. The cat is used to peace and quiet and now there was this generator roaring round the clock just a couple of feet from her territory. Generators are the noisiest thing in the world and the people who run them never give that a thought.

I am bothered by loud noises as Leonard Pennario was too so I think the noise was the culprit. But there is also the chance that the cat went out and dined off the fat of the land, and ate something she should not have eaten. Howard thought that was the case. Whatever the reason it was breaking our hearts because this cat is the sweetest cat in the world and you hate to see it under the weather.

However. Now she is better and today she felt good enough to torture a grasshopper.

Nature is not pretty!

Every time this grasshopper hopped the cat would streak after it and nail it with its paw. Then she would swat it around a little and hold it captive and then let it get away. Sometimes the grasshopper got it into its little grasshopper brain to play dead, hoping the cat would leave it alone. But our cat would wait it out and as soon as the grasshopper moved the cat would fly over and grab it again.

The cat never missed! That was what Howard said. I actually did not see this. He told me about it.

Once the cat grabbed the grasshopper and thrust it into her water bowl. It let it drown but then pulled it out before it was dead. And the game began again.

How horrifying!!

Lucky that cat it is not 100 times our size.Our relationship with it could be quite different, you know?

But there was a positive side to the grasshopper incident.

Our cat was feeling good!