Sparkle the Designer Cat's Blog, page 375

Doing My Facial Exercises

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Having problems with your human or the other cats in your house? As the internet’s “Dear Abby With Claws,” Sparkle had answers to many annoying problems in her two award-winning books! Visit her author’s page on Amazon to buy one or both of her awesome Dear Sparkle books!

I’ve Been Here a Year!

Until this weekend, my human didn’t even remember it was a whole year ago that I came to live with her! In fact, she brought me home from the very same annual cat show in 2014 that I was just at this year. I think she almost forgot because she does not acknowledge sad anniversaries and it was also a little over a year ago that Sparkle died. She actually does not even remember the exact day that the cat before Sparkle died — she just remembers it was sometime in February.

But anyhow, she brought me home a year ago yesterday, and my first blog post here was three days later. So much has happened in the past year! It is kind of amazing. Let’s look at all of it.

I’d only been here a month when I got to go to my first big event: the L.A. Feline Film Festival! I only stayed a little while that day, but I bet next time they have it, I will be able to stay all day.

A couple of weeks later, I went to a cat show in Las Vegas and met the Katnip Lounge human, who gave me this awesome blanket! Boodie usually commandeers it now. I also met the Housecat Confidental human at the actual cat show.

I started accompanying my human regularly to the pet store. Now she almost always takes me along, unless she is in a big hurry.

I’ve been in way too many cat shows in the past year to mention them all, but my first CFA show as an adult was pretty big — look at all the ribbons I won! Normally a cat does not get the rosette ribbons at the beginning, but I did manage to grab a couple! That means I beat out a couple of Grand Premier cats!

And I became a Grand Premier in January at the San Diego cat show, in my very first ring on the first day!

In February, I threw my first big blog party, for Valentine’s Day.

And then I traveled by plane for the first time, to a cat show in Portland! That was an amazing experience. I met the human from the Colehaus Cats, the human from Beaded Tail, the human from Cory’s blog and the human from PDX Pride — plus a fellow author friend of my human’s. Plus I did well at the cat show.

I did so well flying to Portland that my human brought me to the BlogPaws conference in Nashville a couple of months later! I had so much fun! And I won a $100 gift card from Only Natural Pet for my costume in the Pawject Runway competition (I donated it to Kitty Bungalow).

I even got to take a boat to Catalina with my human and her boyfriend for her birthday.

Of course, I celebrated Cat World Domination Day, the holiday that Sparkle founded. I asked Ashton from the Sometimes Cats Herd You blog to cater it, and she did an amazing job.

All my hard work at the cat shows paid off with Regional Wins. I got one in CFA.

And I got two in TICA — one for Kitten, and one as an Alter!

It has been quite a year, and I am so happy I got to share all of it with you!
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Having problems with your human or the other cats in your house? As the internet’s “Dear Abby With Claws,” Sparkle had answers to many annoying problems in her two award-winning books! Visit her author’s page on Amazon to buy one or both of her awesome Dear Sparkle books!

Cat Shows and Other Adventures

As many of you know, I had a cat show this past weekend, but I had lots of other stuff to do too! Even before getting to the hotel, I had to supervise my human on an important errand. She had some business with a bank and the closest branch was right by our Ontario, CA hotel room. They said it was okay for me to be there, so I hung out for an hour and a half and made sure everyone did their job right. I also made some new friends.

I was very excited about this trip because I got to stay at my favorite hotel! Even though it was a different room, it looked exactly like the room I had before. As soon as the cat carrier was opened, I proceeded to mark everything in the room as mine.

It was a big room, so there was a lot of stuff that needed me to rub on it.

We were on the fourth floor, so I had an awesome view! Don’t worry, there was more to see than just the parking lot. I spent a lot of time in my room here.

I also went wandering all around the hotel on my leash both nights we were there!

My human made a new discovery about me: I am not afraid of elevators! I would sit by them and watch them open like it was no big deal, and I didn’t mind going up and down in them without her holding me.

Wouldn’t it be fun to be a bellhop? ‘Cause they get to hop on these things and ride around — that is the job, right?

So I wandered around at night, but during the day, I had to do the cat show. As you probably remember, I had some problems last time and my human was wondering if I wanted to do shows anymore. The good news is I was mostly better the first day of the show, and was perfectly fine on the second day! Which is good because people who know who I am are starting to show up more often, and this is such an easy way to meet them. The show itself was very tough — my competition in CFA this season is a young male Somali who is just at his peak in looks… and he is really handsome! Like me, he is ruddy colored, and that always has a slight edge in the rings, but males have even more of an edge because they tend to be bigger and more impressive. At some point, you’ll get to see photos of him, but my human was too busy this time to take a lot of photos of my rings.

She was helping a breeder who brought four kittens! My breeder was there too and she brought one (he is number 64), so there were five Somali kittens total. Funny enough, none of them were ruddy. The two on far left are red; numbers 64 and 65 are blue (a dilute version of ruddy); and the one on the right is fawn, which is the dilute version of red. I think every one of them, or nearly every one got Best of Breed in the kitten rings at some point, but only a couple (one red, and my breeder’s blue) got finals.

My breeder brought a couple of cakes — an organic chocolate cake and a cheesecake — to celebrate my CFA grand status and regional awards from last season. That was really, really nice of her!

And… I got bacon! The nice breeder on the other side of me had some bacon, sausage and eggs on Sunday and she let me have some of the bacon. My human tried to get a photo but I attacked and devoured it so fast, this was the best she could do.

Oh, and I did get some finals! In fact, in a couple of rings, even though the boy got picked as Best Somali, both he and I got to be in finals because the judge liked us both so much!

So in the end, I went home with four ribbons, which was actually better than my human was expecting.

It was an exhausting weekend… but I can’t wait to do it again!
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Having problems with your human or the other cats in your house? As the internet’s “Dear Abby With Claws,” Sparkle had answers to many annoying problems in her two award-winning books! Visit her author’s page on Amazon to buy one or both of her awesome Dear Sparkle books!

Kickin’ Back Selfies

I had a long day! Not only did my human and I drive over to Ontario for a cat show, I also had to accompany her on some boring important errand! I’ll tell you more about all that later, but right now I want to get some rest.

Oh yeah, but first I guess I have to do my weekly selfie. Are you sure I have to do it? I’m tired.

Maybe I can just reach out and tap the shutter button while I’m dozing…

Like this! No, you want something better? Oh, all right.

Hmmm. My ear’s a little wonky here. Maybe if I move just a bit and change the angle…

It’s sort of overexposed, but that’s all you get.

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Having problems with your human or the other cats in your house? As the internet’s “Dear Abby With Claws,” Sparkle had answers to many annoying problems in her two award-winning books! Visit her author’s page on Amazon to buy one or both of her awesome Dear Sparkle books!

Meet the Purina Pure Love for Pets Winner!

The winner of my Purina Pure Love for Pets giveaway was Becky B. and her kitty Timmie! When they found out they won, Timmie sent me a photo and told me a little bit about herself:

Hi Summer!

My mom shows me your blog all the time… I really like your selfies. My mom walks me with a harness and leash too (but I don’t go to kitty shows. I’m really sorry you got scared at your last show). My full name is Averill’s Timmie L of the Bay, I’m a Blue with White Maine Coon (I’m two years old, still a kitten by Maine Coon standards) and named after Tim Lincecum of the San Francisco Giants (my mom LOVES baseball AND the Giants). My two brothers (we were a small litter, just us three) have baseball players’ names too, Buster and Marco, but the nice breeder lady couldn’t think of a player’s name for me that a “girl” could use…when my mom brought me home, it was the day after Tim (they call him Timmy) Lincecum pitched a no-hitter, so my mom thought that was a sign from the baseball playing kitty gods and that spelling the name with a feminine twist would work just fine.

My mom says I have to wrap things up here (don’t know what she means, maybe we are going to a party!)… thank you for choosing my name for the Purina contest, I can’t take selfies yet, mom says I’m still too young… but I’ll ask my her to take a picture when I get my prize and I’ll send it to you.

Paw bumps,

Timmie

Isn’t she the nicest kitty? Timmie, you should get your prize in late August or early September. Concatulations!
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Having problems with your human or the other cats in your house? As the internet’s “Dear Abby With Claws,” Sparkle had answers to many annoying problems in her two award-winning books! Visit her author’s page on Amazon to buy one or both of her awesome Dear Sparkle books!

Saturday Catinee: Catbook Chronicle

Lots of us kitties are on Facebook, but the CATastrophes humans weren’t expecting to see their cat with an account! Meet Oregano Jones:

If you can’t see the above video, click here to watch it on YouTube!

A couple of cool things about this video: Oregano’s “ladies in waiting” are actually cats from Tabby’s Place that are looking for homes. And Oregano Jones really does have a Facebook page — you can visit and Like him here. #spicy!
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Having problems with your human or the other cats in your house? As the internet’s “Dear Abby With Claws,” Sparkle had answers to many annoying problems in her two award-winning books! Visit her author’s page on Amazon to buy one or both of her awesome Dear Sparkle books!

Another Photo Shoot Gone Wrong

This was my calendar photo shoot for July, and all sorts of things went wrong! The light kept putting a glare on the bunting, no matter what my human did, and I really didn’t like the hat. She may change the elastic to see if it is more comfortable for me, but she didn’t have the right tools right then, so we wound up ditching it.

But I have to admit, I wasn’t really in the mood for a photo session anyhow.

I kept trying to sneak off to play… except you can’t really sneak off from a photo session when you are the only one being photographed!

Then there was a visitor on the set.

Of course, that was totally more interesting than a photo session!

Things went downhill pretty quickly after that!

I was actally kind of sorry to see the photo session end!
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Having problems with your human or the other cats in your house? As the internet’s “Dear Abby With Claws,” Sparkle had answers to many annoying problems in her two award-winning books! Visit her author’s page on Amazon to buy one or both of her awesome Dear Sparkle books!

Treat Like a Wildcat

When my human went to Whole Foods a couple of days ago, she brought home a special treat for us kitties! Can you guess what it was?

That’s right — raw chicken hearts! She got one for each cat. And unlike everything else at Whole Foods, they didn’t cost an arm and a leg (that’s because it was hearts, not limbs) — under 20 cents.

So what did I think of my chicken heart?

It was amazing! I gnawed on it whole, like a true wild beast.

The other two weren’t as sure about this new, raw treat. Boodie was interested at first.

But then she had second thoughts.

My human cut up her chicken heart for her and she ate a few bites, but I don’t think she really “got” it.

Binga, on the other hand, didn’t even want it!

She kept looking at my human, like she was hiding real treats somewhere.

That was fine with me! I helped myself to some of hers.

But I think she had second thoughts when I was done.
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Having problems with your human or the other cats in your house? As the internet’s “Dear Abby With Claws,” Sparkle had answers to many annoying problems in her two award-winning books! Visit her author’s page on Amazon to buy one or both of her awesome Dear Sparkle books!

From Zero to Crazy in Four Frames

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Having problems with your human or the other cats in your house? As the internet’s “Dear Abby With Claws,” Sparkle had answers to many annoying problems in her two award-winning books! Visit her author’s page on Amazon to buy one or both of her awesome Dear Sparkle books!

Necklace Model

You called?

I got so many compliments about modeling the Cat Lady Box Pendant yesterday that my human decided to have me model another necklace! It had been sitting around for a while and she completely forgot about it until just a few days ago.

And when I say “sitting around for a while,” I mean really a while! I don’t know if you can read the label but it says, “Fall ’14.” Well, it wouldn’t have fit me back than anyway, and now it does.

Excuse me while I strike a pose!

Here is a close-up. This is my faraway look.

Here is another angle. If you want this cute rhinestone and pearl necklace, you are out of luck — it was a limited edition and my human looked and it isn’t available anywhere! Not even on eBay or Amazon. So I’ll never have to worry about wearing it to a party and having somebody else copycatting me.

Or is that copy… dog?
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Having problems with your human or the other cats in your house? As the internet’s “Dear Abby With Claws,” Sparkle had answers to many annoying problems in her two award-winning books! Visit her author’s page on Amazon to buy one or both of her awesome Dear Sparkle books!