Sparkle the Designer Cat's Blog, page 426

Feline Fortune Telling

My human pre-ordered the Mystical Cats Tarot way back last year! So she was pretty happy when it finally arrived a couple of weeks ago, even before its official release date.

While this deck is similar in spirit to the Rider Waite Tarot cards, it has its own feline spirit and symbolism. And instead of Wands, Pentacles, Swords and Cups, the cat cards have Fire, Earth, Sky and Sea — plus of course, the Major Arcana, known here as the Cat Mysteries.

A book accompanies the deck, with each card explained (although they are already pretty easy to read intuitively), plus several different spreads, and early sketches of some of the beautiful cards as they were being designed.

My favorite card of all is the Fire King, because they used a Somali cat as the model! These cards are really gorgeous — you really need to see them up close to appreciate them.

When you get a special deck like this one, you should get a nice bag to carry them in! My human got this maroon velvet bag, plus a smaller bag to hold a rose quartz heart and some catnip so that fortunes will be told with love and… um, nip.

Now, here is the fun part! I will read some fortunes! If you would like your cards read, tell me in the comments below, and if there is anything specific you would like to know! I will randomly pick three of you for card readings next week, while my human is at BlogPaws! For two of you, I will do the Shield of Sekhmet reading, which involves three cards, and for one of you, I will do the special Nine Lives spread, which looks at your whole life! I am really curious to try my paw at reading the Tarot!

If you want your own Mystical Cats Tarot deck, you can get it at Amazon!

Disclosure: Links to Amazon are Associate links, and I get a small commission for each sale… ’cause my cards told me to include them!
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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!

There’s (Mostly) No Such Thing as a Bad Kitty

Some of you may know that my human posts weekly at CatChannel.com, and that this week she featured Binga in a story called “The Bad Kitty Dilemma.” I wanted to bring this up because I actually do think she made a really good point this time around. The money quote? “Cats have no sense of right and wrong. They have needs, and they have wants — and they don’t understand why they shouldn’t go out and get them.” A lot of humans don’t get this, so I thought I’d examine it a little bit more, from a feline perspective.

There really is no such thing as a bad kitty (well, except maybe for Binga). We cats live beyond the place humans (and dogs) know as “good” and “bad.” Unlike dogs, we are not hampered by what humans think. We cats are not people pleasers. And unlike humans, we don’t have a made-up moral code we feel we must stick to. We are truly free beings, living in the moment and going directly to the source. This is why punishment does not work on a cat. Where a dog or a human feels the deep cut of disapproval (from the dog owner, society or self), we cats merely see inconvenience. Being told we are bad, either by words or action, does not reach us. Giving a cat something better than what he is currently doing — now, that is something that will make us turn our heads! So always remember, if you want us cats to stop doing something, give us an option that is more appealing.

Frankly, I think we kitties should be lauded and not censured for our no-nonsense, go-getter attitudes! A lot of times, humans don’t achieve their full potential because they worry about what other people might think, or they have a false sense of guilt. Do you realize how much humans could accomplish if they didn’t care about everyone else’s opinions or whether they “deserved” what they wanted? In fact there are humans that forge ahead like a kitty — and you know what they’re called? No, no, no, not psychopaths — CEOs! And every cat is a CEO of his or her own home. Of course, this might be a teensy bit problematic in a multi-cat household, but given a chance and enough vertical space, we will establish a corporate hierarchy.

If humans want to get ahead in life, they should emulate us cats.
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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!

Tortie Lickin’ Good Tuesday

Binga clearly wanted to have the blog post today, so I let her.

She is one of those crazy cats who likes to lick humans. I say, “Ewww.”

She will lick my human’s hand raw if she lets her.

But seriously, would you let this face come anywhere near your bare flesh? ‘Cause you know what’s coming next.

She thinks this is a love bite. I’m not sure how much love there is in that face.
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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!

Metal Cats Book Review and Giveaway!

This is my heavy metal expression. It’s important I have the right attitude for this book review! Metal Cats is a cool little book full of photos of cats… and the metal dudes that love them!

I think most of you know by now that my human was a rock journalist for many years, and she specialized in loud music. So she was very particular about how we kitties posed with this book. As you can see, Binga failed because she was trying too hard. She looks like she is posing for a book called Hard Rock Cats. But this book doesn’t have poseurs in it. These kitties and their humans are the real, heavy deal!

The whole concept came about when photographer Alexandra Crockett, who has been part of the metal scene since she was a teenager, was doing promo shots of bands and friends — and she realized what a great connection many of these metal guys had with their cats. Cats are metal, after all — we are nonconformists and rule breakers, and we don’t just question authority, we completely ignore it. Plus we’re charming. So it only made sense to put together a photo book that combined the raw power of cats with the powerful metal of these musicians.

The book includes members of Black Goat, Thrones, Lightning Swords of Death, Book of Black Earth, Skarp, Harassor, Ludicra, Murder Construct, Exhumed, Morbid Angel, Municipal Waste, Skeletonwitch, Napalm Death, and lots of other band guys and cats! Here are some of the photos from the book:

Brooks Blackheart (Atriarch, DJ Blackheart) and Fred
From Metal Cats by Alexandra Crockett, published by powerHouse Books.

Aub Driver (Jahai and Darkhorse Comics) and Freya
From Metal Cats by Alexandra Crockett, published by powerHouse Books.

Dino Sommese (Ghoul, Dystopia, Carcinogen, Splatterthrash, Insidious and Noothgrush) and Short Bus

From Metal Cats by Alexandra Crockett, published by powerHouse Books.

I am especially fond of the last photo because it shows that not only do metal guys take their cats to the vet when they need care, they are willing to put uncomfortable coverings on their heads in sympathy. ‘Cause that is what’s going on there, right?

But I haven’t told you the best part of the book yet: a portion of the proceeds will go to cat rescues! So when you buy a copy, you are helping kitties! There will also be fundraising shows in the Bay Area, Portland, OR and Seattle! Plus a fundraiser/ book release party in Brooklyn.

Metal Cats comes out May 6, and you can pre-order you copy on Amazon here.

And in case you didn’t notice my headline, I’ve also got a copy to give away! I made arrangements with the publicist human to send it here so that once I was done posing with it, I could give it away to anyone in the world! That’s right, this giveaway is open to my international and U.S. readers! ‘Cause I know I have international readers who love both metal and cats! All you need to do is comment below and let me know you want to be entered! I will randomly choose a name at midnight on Monday, May 5! Good luck!

Disclosure: Links to Amazon are Associate links, and I get a small commission for each sale… ’cause I deserve it!
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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: Cat Forced Into Cuteness Servitude

If you ask me, this kitty’s human made him work way too hard for his breakfast! He was clearly wasting away, but being cute wasn’t enough. Darling little meows weren’t enough. This poor cat had to actually beg for his breakfast! It’s animal cruelty, I tell you!

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

He needs to take lessons from this cat (paws up to Spitty for finding this video):

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

Because I am a semi-longhaired cat with a fluffy tail, making crops of me is always problematic. If it is mainly my head and shoulders, my human can do a clean crop with the help of this link that I talked about in a previous Caturday Art post. This is fine for something that is stylized, but what about a photo that includes my fluffy tail? Sometimes a clean crop won’t work very well. Take this photo of me, for example:

I’m flipping my tail a little so it looks kind of weird at the end. When the background is cropped out, you have no idea what my tail is doing!

To add fluff to a crop of me, my human uses the Smudge tool in Photoshop. No matter what version of Photoshop you have, you have the Smudge tool, and it is in Photoshop Elements too. The secret to using the Smudge tool for adding fluff is choosing the Brush tip — the more random the pattern, the better — and making sure it is the right size. This photo of me was a pretty high resolution, so the brush was fairly large.

When you’ve picked out the Brush for the Smudge tool, you start brushing the kitty! And like in real life, you brush in the direction of the fur, except here you start a little inside the edge and brush outwards. You don’t start too far into the image or you will start making it look too smudge-y.

It does take some practice to get right. You don’t want the fur to look too even. It should look natural, but not too mussed up. The secret is not thinking too hard about it — that will make you crazy. My human did this really quick (she also did my chest and a little bit around the rest of me), but it already looks better than the clean, unretouched crop.

Note that she did not do anything to my ears! You don’t need this technique for kitty ears unless you have a Maine Coon with big ear tufts, or a lot of interior ear fur is showing, like if the cat is doing the half-airplane ear (one of my favorite facial expressions).

If you want to work even harder, you can touch up some of the fur with the clone stamp and use some other tricks, but if you are just doing this for the internet and not for a fancy print magazine, this is good enough!

For more Caturday Art, visit Athena!

Also, in case you were wondering, my human got several submissions after last week’s post, and she will be contacting those who sent photos sometime this week. If all goes as scheduled, she will probably spend the next couple of Caturday Art posts working on other kitties’ images.
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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!

MeowBox Winner, With Alternate Announcer

Here I was, about to announce the winner to my MeowBox giveaway, and look who shows up. Yep, that’s her ear, photobombing the MeowBox.

If she is so anxious to be in the shot, she can announce the winner too! It is:

Nancy L!

Concatulations, Nancy — the MeowBox humans have already been contacted and they should get your box off to you and your kitties shortly!

By the way, this was my most successful giveaway to date! I had more entries than in any of my previous contests. Thanks for participating!

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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!

Feline Photographer Friday

I bet this camera looks kind of funny to you! It certainly did to me when I found it on my human’s desk earlier this week! For one thing, it is not digital.

It is also kitty-sized! It is a tiny vintage camera from the 1950s. They called them “spy cameras!” My human spends so much time chasing me around with her dumb camera that I think maybe I should turn the tables on her and start “spying” on her with this thing.

That is, as soon as I figure out how to use it! And where to get the film developed. And where to get the film.
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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: Is It Bad to Eat Toy Mousie Tails?

Dear Sparkle,

I love to chew the little leather tails off all of my mousie wand toys. My human thinks I probably shouldn’t do this but I can’t help myself, and she eventually relents and lets me chew the tails off. Is there something I could be chewing on that I would love as much? She bought me some pretzel shaped chew toy but it’s no mousie tail. Are those little leather tails really bad for me? Oh, and I also like to lick the fur off of the toys too. That’s okay, isn’t it?

Signed,

Little Hansi

Dear Little Hansi,

The bad news is that string is a very dangerous thing for a kitty to consume — it could result in a trip to the emergency vet and maybe even an operation. The good news is that the leather tails on mousie toys don’t really count as string! Leather used to be on an animal, most likely a cow, and we kitties do eat beef, right? So these tails are made from a natural, edible substance and you should be able to digest them just fine. Just to be on the safe side, however, I would recommend that your human cut them fairly short to make double sure they don’t cause an obstruction in your digestive system. That’s why string is so dangerous — its length can cause havoc in your intestines and do lots of damage. Little pieces of leather mousie tail should be okay. Honestly, I don’t know if there are any satisfactory replacements to them. They are a very fun shape and size for kitty chewing! If your human is still worried, she can ask your vet about this.

If the fur on the toys is real, again, it is a natural substance and it shouldn’t be a problem if you lick it off. But just a thought — where are these toys from, anyway? Do you know that if they are made in China, or if the company gets their pelts from outside of the U.S., you could be licking cat fur? The fur trade in China has no species limitations and they think dogs and cats are a good, cheap source of fur. Horrible, isn’t it? And if the fur is dyed unnatural colors, I would also be a little wary. Make sure your human checks your toys and is sure they are made in the U.S. or Canada, or another country that keeps an eye on how pet toys are made. It’s always safer that way.
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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!

Random Photos of Me

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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!