Sparkle the Designer Cat's Blog, page 420

Sparkle’s Human Astrology for Cats: Cancer

Cancer

June 21 – July 22

When you first come home with a Cancer human, you’ll think you’ve hit the jackpot. Here’s a human who really knows how to care for you. She (or he) knows exactly the right kind of cat bed and cat tree that will appeal to you. She carefully chooses the best food for you, striking the perfect balance between healthy and tasty. She is lots of fun, nurturing and loves you like mad. Then trouble strikes.

You have to go to the vet clinic and you don’t want to. You are sure you can manipulate your way out of it — go hide somewhere or put up such a fight that your human will panic or feel guilty and give up. Well, guess what? You are out of luck. You are going to that vet, no matter what. Cancer knows all your hiding places, even the super-secret ones. She will turn your struggling body every which way until you fit into that carrier. And don’t think you will make the both of you so late that you will miss the appointment — she has already factored the time dealing with you into the trip. And as you are in the car, singing the song of your people, she may even tell you that awful, boldfaced lie: “I’m sorry, baby. This hurts me worse than it hurts you.”

Cancer loves you through the good and the bad, that’s for sure. Unfortunately, this sign is up to all the “caring” tasks you would rather avoid — the trips to the vet, the meds, even — yes — the dreaded “diet.” At least with the latter, you will have a sympathetic ear, since Cancer loves food as much as you do. But Cancer is one tenacious cookie, and will persist in doing something after every other sign (except perhaps Taurus) has given up. And if it involves doing something for your own good? Cancer is even more persistent. How maddening!

The upside to all this is that Cancer will protect you fiercely and love you forever. This sign can’t even fathom the word “fickle.” When you become part of Cancer’s family it is for life, and if your safety is ever threatened, you’ll discover that Cancer’s claws are as sharp as yours. She is a little clingy with money, it is true, but she will probably scrimp on the quality of her own rations before she cheaps out on yours. If she starts bringing home cat food on sale from the grocery store, you will know she is down to her last few thousand in the bank. Did I mention she is clingy with money?

One Cancer quirk that will annoy most kitties: many of them are photography nuts. They will enjoy taking endless photos of you whether they have any talent at it or not (and actually a large percentage of Cancer people are excellent photographers). And no matter how often you look away and try to ruin shots, they will not stop until they’ve gotten their picture. Trust me, I know — my human is a sun sign Cancer! In the old days, they would have put all these photos in a treasured scrapbook — and because they are sentimental, I bet some Cancers still do own scrapbooks. But these days, they are more likely to post them online, and they’ll have a dedicated photo account or hard drive (or both) where everything is saved and backed up thricefold.

Cancer humans are changeable and moody, kind of like their ruler, the Moon. They are happy one moment, tearful the next, and then so snappish you don’t even want to be near them. Fortunately for us kitties, Cancer moodiness is usually directed at other humans — they will seek comfort and validation from you. Be a good sport and hang in there — you will be rewarded with your favorite treats, and your Cancer human will know exactly which ones you want.

Not every cat will get along with Cancer humans equally. There are some adjustments to be had for several signs. Gemini, you will feel like Cancer is stifling your freedom (and you would be right) — you will have to work extra hard to show this sign that you really need space. Sagittarius, you will have a similar problem, plus you are a bit clumsy, so Cancer will be overprotective of you. Try to have a little more grace and make her laugh — that should help. Aries will love being nurtured by Cancer on one hand, but balk at some of her “rules” — rules that are meant for your own safety. You will, of course, ignore them, so don’t look at me when you wind up at the vet. Good news for Aquarius kitties: the sort of things that would drive Cancer crazy if you were a human, she will like about you. Your quirkiness appeals to her, and she will take very good care of you. Libra, your Cancer human may get frustrated when you can’t decide which food you like, but other than that you will make a great pair. The Cancer human-Leo cat combination is especially nice — Leo kitties will be happy to have their very own fangirl or boy. Virgo cats will find it easy to train Cancer humans to their exacting standards, and Taurus kitties will feel very comfortable under Cancer’s warmth and caring. Capricorn cats have a hard time opening up to humans — but Cancer can make that very easy for you. You Scorpio cats will be amused by your Cancer humans’ protectiveness, when you know they are the ones that need protecting! And of course you are up to that challenge. Pisces cats will have a connection with their humans that is almost psychic. Well, actually it is psychic!

What about a Cancer cat and a Cancer human? You are both so moody it might be a bit of a roller coaster! When you are both in the same grouchy phase, your house will be quite an unpleasant place! On the other hand, when you are both cheerful, you couldn’t find a sunnier home.
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Having problems with your human or the other cats in your house? As the internet’s “Dear Abby With Claws,” I have answers to many annoying problems in my two award-winning books! Visit my author’s page on Amazon to buy one or both of my awesome Dear Sparkle books!

Dear Sparkle: Why Does My Human’s Guest Act So Weird?

Dear Sparkle,

Humans are weird. Well, I guess you already know that, but I’m confused by this one guy in particular. He comes over to visit my human and they hang out in the living room, chatting for hours. He is very polite and does not rudely go chasing after me, trying to grab and pet me before I’m ready like some of her other friends do. This guy just sits there, not looking at me. In fact, he averts his gaze when I’m in the room, showing his respect and deference to me. So of course, I’m inclined to go over and say hello, but when I do, he stands up immediately and says to my human, “Tell your cat to go away!” I don’t get it — first his body language indicates he’s cool, and then he gets all hysterical. What’s wrong with him?

Signed,

Flummoxed in Fresno

Dear Flummoxed,

Humans are even weirder than you think! They often do the very opposite of what you expect them to do, and have a very different language from us kitties. This friend of your human’s is a prime example. He gives you all the signals a friendly cat would when entering your turf — but he is totally not friendly. When it comes to humans, looking away is not a gesture of respect at all. It could mean they are shifty and not to be trusted or that they are lying or guilty about something. In this case, it seems that he fears you and wants to avoid eye contact. He is trying to pretend that you are not there, and hoping you will do the same. Why? I have no idea. It could be any number of things. Maybe he is allergic — not so badly that he can’t come visit, but bad enough that if he touches you, he’ll get itchy, watery eyes and break out in a rash. Or maybe he is afraid of cats, someone human psychologists call an ailurophobe. Or perhaps he doesn’t like cats (which makes me wonder what he is doing in your home to begin with!). In any case, he actually does not want anything to do with you — and because he is a clueless human, he is giving off the type of signals that make you want to get to know him better!

Now, if this human were really smart and did not want you around, he would do exactly the same thing your human’s so-called cat loving friends do: go after you and try to pick you up! This is a sure signal to us kitties that someone is not to be trusted, and we stay as far away as possible. That kind of behavior would have me hiding under the bed in no time. But typical human that he is, he behaves just the opposite of the way he should — and gets what he unintentionally asked for.
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Having problems with your human or the other cats in your house? As the internet’s “Dear Abby With Claws,” I have answers to many annoying problems in my two award-winning books! Visit my author’s page on Amazon to buy one or both of my awesome Dear Sparkle books!

Sunday Catinee: Bouncing Off the Walls

Have you ever lived with a kitten or young cat that was so active, he seemed to be bouncing off the walls? Well, the humans of this Abyssinian kitty have that — literally! As you will see in today’s slow motion video.

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

Binga was kind of like that for the first year she lived with my humans. Unfortunately, she did not have a slow-mo speed!

By the way, many thanks to The Daily Abyssinian blog for finding this video first!
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Having problems with your human or the other cats in your house? As the internet’s “Dear Abby With Claws,” I have answers to many annoying problems in my two award-winning books! Visit my author’s page on Amazon to buy one or both of my awesome Dear Sparkle books!

Caturday Art: The Surprise Texture Addition

Maybe some of you knew this super-secret place to find awesome textures in Photoshop, but my human was clueless until just a few hours ago. She’s been using the boring textures in the Filter Gallery all this time. I’ll tell you all about it in a minute — first, though, a picture was needed to add a texture to. So my human picked the below photo of me to turn into an oil painting.

She used what she calls “the quick and dirty method” to do it. It’s not the most fabulous technique but I thought I’d share it with you anyway. First she duplicated the photo on two additional layers. Then she just clicked on the first copy and went to the Oil Paint filter, which is in Photoshop CS6 and higher. You can’t see the Brush and Lighting adjustments very well, so I will tell you the top Brush adjustment is 10, the second one is 5, the third slider is pushed all the way to the left, and the fourth slider is pushed all the way to the right. As for the Lighting adjustment, just make sure that Shine is at 0 and the other slider does not matter.

After she finished that layer, she clicked on the top copy layer to highlight it. Then she went to the Filter drop-down menu at the top of the screen and went to Filter->Pixelate->Pointillize and pushed the Cell Size slider all the way to the left.

Here is how it looked so far — don’t worry, it’s not done!

She brought the fill way down on the top layer.

Here is the “oil painting” of me. It’s okay for something done so fast.

But of course, my human wanted to try out the new textures she discovered. First she created a new, blank layer above all the others and filled it with white. (If you look to the right, you’ll see she merged the two artistic layers, just to simplify things. You don’t have to do that — it was just her choice.)

Yes, you can’t see me anymore, but not for long. She brought the Opacity down and changed the Blend Mode to Multiply. Here are the settings:

Next, she clicked on the white box in the Texture layer, and that opened up the Layer Style settings. Then she clicked to the right of the word Texture, right under Bevel and Emboss and it opened up the Pattern window. If you click on the little sliver where the red arrow is pointing, it opens up a panel of patterns (some of which my human made herself and a couple of which you actually see on my new blog layout).

What my human didn’t realize was if she clicked on the little gear symbol on the upper right hand corner of this new panel, it opened up a whole treasure trove of patterns — including “Artist Surfaces!” So she clicked on that.

When she clicked on this new pattern set, this window popped up. She clicked “OK” because that is what you are supposed to do.

And look at all the textures that opened up! If she had made my photo into a watercolor, or pastel, or pen and ink, or other artistic medium, she had a bunch of surfaces to choose from.

Since it was an oil painting, she picked one of the more canvas-y style textures and then played around with the settings until she liked it. As you can see, Preview was checked on the right so that she could see the results as she was fooling around.

And here is the final result! As you can see, the texture added something. If you have photoshop, try adding texture to one of your own digital art pictures and see how you like it!

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

Facebook Funnies

Here’s another edition of funny Facebook posts from my blog! If you follow me on Facebook, you may have seen some of them — but I bet you have not seen them all! Enjoy.

Many kitties have aspired to become interior decorators — this one has taken matters into his own paws:

Post by Sparkle the Designer Cat.

Makes sense to me!

Post by Sparkle the Designer Cat.

I thought this was funny and disturbing at the same time.

Post by Sparkle the Designer Cat.

Here’s another great profession for a kitty!

Post by Sparkle the Designer Cat.

And one more International Box Day post:

Post by Sparkle the Designer Cat.


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

International Box Day and Link-Up!

Here I am, reporting from the big box on International Box Day. The first thing on my agenda is to replace the photographer.

Ah, that’s better! Wait a minute — no, it’s not.

Anyhow, me and my shadow want to let you know that I am hosting an International Box Day Link-up so you can share your post! In fact, if you have an awesome International Box Day post from the past, you are welcome to also post that one. I am sharing my 2012 post that spoofs Fight Club! And as soon as I am done blogging today, there is going to be a fight too.

An InLinkz Link-up

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

What Kind of Splurge Is This?

Did you know that today is National Splurge Day? My human had a $10 CVS coupon so she wasted it splurged on a $12.99 Hello Kitty mini Lego set. You can tell that Binga was not impressed.

I was not impressed either. Do you know how many treats $12.99 can buy?

Don’t you think this is the dumbest splurge ever?

For what it’s worth, here is the finished project.

Oh, and did I mention there were stickers?

Binga finally had enough of this pointless “splurge.”

So at last my human pulled out a kitty-appropriate splurge — some new treats she got from my favorite boutique pet store, Pussy and Pooch in downtown Los Angeles. Now if only the rest of us can have some…
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Having problems with your human or the other cats in your house? As the internet’s “Dear Abby With Claws,” I have answers to many annoying problems in my two award-winning books! Visit my author’s page on Amazon to buy one or both of my awesome Dear Sparkle books!

Bad Fur Day

Can you tell how mad I am? My human was trying to dose me with some feel-good holistic type stuff and it wound up all over my fur instead of in my mouth! She is terrible with an eye-dropper. Never mind that I squirmed at the wrong time. That’s her problem, not mine.

Brushing only spread the oiliness. What a mess. And just when I want to look my best for Cat World Domination Day.

In addition to being a klutz when it comes to meds, my human had no idea how to fix this awful problem. She had to resort to posting on Facebook for a solution. Fortunately she has a bunch of friends who are way more knowledgable about this sort of thing than she is. Mostly they suggested putting cornstarch on the affected areas, and since there was some in the cupboard, that is exactly what she did.

Here is a closer look — fortunately, it started to work immediately. You’ll have to excuse the slightly out of focus shot here — and you’ll have to really forgive the way out of focus shot from 20 minutes later because…

I love being brushed! And she had to brush me for a really long time to get out the cornstarch. And she used my favorite slicker brush.

As you can see, the cornstarch mostly fixed the problem and my fur is nearly back to normal.

She had better not let this happen 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,” I have answers to many annoying problems in my two award-winning books! Visit my author’s page on Amazon to buy one or both of my awesome Dear Sparkle books!

Is Your Human a Lap Human?

According to humans, lap cats are highly desirable. When cats doze on humans’ laps, it calms them down, lowers their blood pressure and puts them into a Zen-like state. It’s a very beneficial thing for a cat to do for a human.

That said, not every human qualifies as a lap human. Take mine for example. She is very squirmy and fidgety and the only time she is still for more than a few seconds is when she is unconscious (i.e., sleeping) — and even that is not guaranteed. So my human does not get much in the way of lap time, unless she is napping. And of course she is not sitting when she is doing that.

Having a squirmy, fidgety human made me sit down think: what, exactly, goes into making a good lap human? So I’ve put together a list.

Able to sit still for long periods of time. From 45 minutes to several hours is good.
Owns lap-promoting furniture such a squishy sofa, comfy chairs, recliners, etc.
Watches a lot of TV. Humans who have special TV shows that they watch religiously are good lap candidates.
Reads a lot of books. This can be either physical books or eBooks. The medium does not affect their ability to be good lap humans.
Has great bladder control.
The ability to sleep sitting up is a plus.
Lap humans don’t have to be lazy… but the lazy ones do make great lap humans.

Tell me… how does your human measure up?
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Having problems with your human or the other cats in your house? As the internet’s “Dear Abby With Claws,” I have answers to many annoying problems in my two award-winning books! Visit my author’s page on Amazon to buy one or both of my awesome Dear Sparkle books!

Sunday Catinee: Rug Thieves

Kitties, I’m sure many of you know how much fun the under-the-door game is — and it is even more fun when there is something to grab onto! Check out this rug-grabbing kitty, Lilly. Do you think she’ll get it all? Watch!

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

And of course, once I saw that video, I had to see if there were any others — and there were! This was the best one… even better, you actually get to see the thief’s face at the end.

If you can’t see the above video, click here to watch it on YouTube!
* * *
Having problems with your human or the other cats in your house? As the internet’s “Dear Abby With Claws,” I have answers to many annoying problems in my two award-winning books! Visit my author’s page on Amazon to buy one or both of my awesome Dear Sparkle books!