Sparkle the Designer Cat's Blog, page 362

The Christmas Tree Miracle

The miracle is that my human got the Christmas tree set up at all. She needed to clear out one corner of the living room to have a place for it, and for a while there, I wasn’t even sure she’d get it done. But she did, which meant she also had to bring out all the boxes and boxes of Christmas ornaments that she’s collected over the years.

Which also meant Binga had to get in the way. Fortunately she did not destroy anything.

None of these ornaments were handed down from previous generations, but some of them are several decades old because my human has been collecting them for most of her life. These are typical of the kinds of ornaments she collects.

Each one has meaning to her. She got the cat on the gold music symbols when she was primarily a rock journalist. She doesn’t remember where she got the cat-in-the-box ornament, but she loves any ornament that moves or does something. Not everything she loves has a cat on it. The folk art bat ornament she got from an old catalog for Bat Conservation International. She loves bats and wants to protect them because they do so much good for the environment.

The cat in the rocking chair ornament is one of her oldest — it is probably from the 1980s sometime. If you look closely at the “New Home” ornament, you can see ’96 written in the snow. That’s the year the ornament was made — and the year she first bought her own home.

My human is always on the lookout for new Christmas ornaments, even during years when she never gets around to putting the tree up. In fact, she does not get the tree up all that often! These cat ornaments got put on a tree maybe once before this.

I don’t think this one has ever been on a tree before.

Once my human gathered all the ornaments together, she began decorating the tree. I helped lots.

It was a lot of work, but we got it done!

Here is another view of the tree, from a kitty perspective!

Yes, there is only one present under the tree so far — because my human had only gotten one wrapped! She was up late wrapping the rest of them.

Okay, now there are two presents under the tree — because I am the best present of all!
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My Christmas eCard 2015

My human finally got it together this weekend! I have two versions for you, one larger, one smaller — take whichever one you want!

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My 2016 calendars are here! Find my regular calendar on Lulu.com — OR get my calendar of outtakes from Zazzle!

Garden Thief

I am very mad today! You won’t believe what was going on in my very own catnip garden this week!

This cat was wantonly enjoying himself — all over my nip!

He knew he got caught, and he ran off right after this.

Of course, I had to go out an inspect my garden to make sure it was not too badly defiled.

I know you are probably thinking that since it is Christmas Eve and all that maybe I should be nicer and share my nip garden with other cats. But this guy had a collar on, and I’m sure his family can give him all the nip he wants! So why did he have to try and steal mine?
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My 2016 calendars are here! Find my regular calendar on Lulu.com — OR get my calendar of outtakes from Zazzle!

What NOT to Give Your Human for Christmas

Humans are strange creatures and it is hard to find gifts for them that they will appreciate. Things that we cats adore are often the very same things that they dislike — and vice versa. It’s an awful feeling to present someone with what you thought was a carefully chosen gift on Christmas morning only to have the recipient cringe with revulsion. So just in time to save you kitties from embarrassment, here is the following list of things that you should probably not give your humans this holiday season.

A dead rat

I know, I know, any cat would treasure a well-prepared gift you went out and caught yourself, and rats and mice are a whole food, but humans just won’t eat them. In fact, when you present them with one, they are usually pretty rude and won’t even accept it — or if they do, they will immediately toss it out. So save your energy.
A live rat

I think live rats make really fun playthings, and I bet you do too — but your human won’t. In fact, there may be panic around the Christmas tree if you try to drop this present at her feet. So if you have one you are planning to give, either keep it for yourself or make it a present to a feline family member.
A big, juicy bug

See Numbers 1 and 2. Besides, good bugs are hard to come by this time of year. Don’t waste them on someone who won’t appreciate them.
Freshly baked Christmas cookies

Humans love cookies, so you’d think this type of gift would be a no-brainer. But admit it, you stole those cookies from the counter right after your human made them. Trust me, she will know.
A gently used cat toy

It’s bad form to gift somebody something that they previously gave you. Human memories are pretty good – she will probably know she originally bought it.
A box or an empty gift bag

First off, you’d need to find an awfully big box or bag for your human to fit herself into. But humans just don’t have the enthusiasm for boxes and bags that we cats do anyhow. They are more interested in getting something inside the box or bag, which just proves they don’t understand the true value of these items.

So what do you do if you’ve already gotten your human one of these gifts? Ditch it and give the gift of yourself! Your human will enjoy your head butts and the sound of your purr far more than any other present. Isn’t spending time with your loved ones the true meaning of the holiday?
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My 2016 calendars are here! Find my regular calendar on Lulu.com — OR get my calendar of outtakes from Zazzle!

My Secret Paws Presents!

Remember the box I got about a week and a half ago? Well, I got another package yesterday morning, so I finally know who sent them both, and who my Secret Paws is (are)!

It’s the kitties (and human) from Dash Kitten! Although the box came from Amazon, yesterday’s package came all the way from New Zealand!

The presents in the package are for my human, so I am going to show them to you second, since I am sure you all are dying to know what was in the box!

Let’s dig right in! Okay, I guess I seem to be the only one digging here….

I was a little too excited about the gifts to pose properly with them. Sorry.

I claimed the catnip banana even before my human removed the packaging! The Orijen cat treats are also favorites of ours. Binga and Boodie are lucky — they get treats for no reason. I usually have to work for them.

Now, let’s see what my human got!

The gift bag contained a box that has a sentiment my human totally relates to.

The black box contained this pretty pendant and necklace, and the long box had a sweet, silver toned bracelet, which fits my human’s wrist perfectly. My human loves them both! Thank you so much, Dash Kitten kitties and human! We adore our Secret Paws gifts lots!
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My 2016 calendars are here! Find my regular calendar on Lulu.com — OR get my calendar of outtakes from Zazzle!

Never a Moment’s Peace

Before other plans got in the way, my human and I were supposed to go to Barkworld. That didn’t happen, but one of the attendees made bandanas for the humans who did go, including one for my human’s publishing company, since we were still on the list. When we didn’t show up, she was nice enough to send it to us! Isn’t that cool? Her Etsy shop is JmeGirlShop, if you’d like to check it out — she has catnip sachets and treat bags!

Of course I had to try it on, even though is a little big for me!

I thought it was getting too quiet around here!

Maybe my human should have put the bandana on her instead!
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My 2016 calendars are here! Find my regular calendar on Lulu.com — OR get my calendar of outtakes from Zazzle!

The Selfie Challenge

When I was out in the front yard the other day, my human took some portraits of me — and then she challenged me to take a selfie that was as good as this photo! I knew it was not going to be easy.

The first time I tried, the sun got in my eyes.

I decided that maybe this wasn’t quite the right place to take a good selfie, so I tried some more in the shade.

I cut myself off on the first try.

The challenge was even tougher than I thought it would be! This is the best I got.

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My 2016 calendars are here! Find my regular calendar on Lulu.com — OR get my calendar of outtakes from Zazzle!

Monkey Feet on Caturday

As many of you know, I have a newsletter that I send out a couple of times a month (you can subscribe in the righthand sidebar if you like). The company I use to send out these emails is called MailChimp, and they are pretty awesome! They have free and paid services, and I use the free service. So I was quite surprised when my human and I received a box from them the other day! I couldn’t wait to see what was inside.

It turned out to be a pair of MailChimp socks, in holiday red.

As you can tell I was a little bit disappointed. I was kind of hoping to maybe get a catnip banana!

They aren’t even in my size — can you tell? I guess I will just have to give them to my human.
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My 2016 calendars are here! Find my regular calendar on Lulu.com — OR get my calendar of outtakes from Zazzle!

My Front Yard

I haven’t been out in the front yard in a long time, so my human took me out yesterday.

She says that I need to get out more to places other than cat shows, hotel rooms and the occasional pet store, especially if I want to be a therapy cat. The thing with us kitties is that if you stop introducing us to new things, we start getting really nervous every time we are taken out of our comfort zone and our world starts shrinking. So the best thing is to take us out of our comfort zone in small doses.

Oh yeah, and give us lots of treats when you do that. Can you see the big bag of Greenies sitting on the concrete seat in the background?

Since I am not outside as much as I should be, the cars driving up the street made me a little uncomfortable. But my human made me stay out while they drove past, and held onto me so I felt safer. She says that since I have no cat shows over the holidays, she will be taking me out to a lot of different places. She calls it “desensitization,” and says that eventually I will be okay even in a busy train station.

Don’t worry, I didn’t let my human call all the shots. I let her know when I was done.

Now, where are those treats!
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My 2016 calendars are here! Find my regular calendar on Lulu.com — OR get my calendar of outtakes from Zazzle!

Why Binga Didn’t Help With the Wrapping

I’m really surprised that in all the comments for yesterday’s post, nobody asked the one question that, to me, was obvious: why wasn’t Binga helping? So I’m providing the answer today.

These photos were taken over a period of, oh, about three minutes, after which my human and I realized that if anything was going to get done, Binga needed to go hang out in another part of the house. So for the rest of the wrapping, she was gone.

Except… this is the card that accompanied the presents.
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My 2016 calendars are here! Find my regular calendar on Lulu.com — OR get my calendar of outtakes from Zazzle!