Sparkle the Designer Cat's Blog, page 464

Part 2 of Yesterday’s Post

I best you didn’t realize yesterday’s blog post had a Part 2! Well, it does. Let’s see, when we left off, Binga had crashed my nip party.

I was mad but my human tried to console me with one of the cool nip toys from Edgar’s Attic (reminder: you have until June 15 to get 15% off purchases of $10 or more with the code SPARKLE15).

But as if having the fresh nip to herself wasn’t enough, look! It’s the party crasher again.

Some days it’s just impossible to enjoy yourself in peace.

Binga proceeded to kill my toy! Luckily, it is very sturdy and it did not stay killed.

Meanwhile, since nobody was tending to the fresh nip…

Was there a Part 3? Yes, there was, but this has gone on long enough. Suffice it to say that it ended with several tufts of Boodie fur stuck to the rug.

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Remember to nominate me for The Petties, especially my story Humans Are Willfully Destroying Our Bird TV (http://www.sparklecat.com/special/humans-are-willfully-destroying-our-bird-tv) for Best Blog Post! You can do this every day until June 28 — the more times, the better!
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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!

Green Thursday

If you are one of my Facebook fans, or if you follow my human on Instagram, you may have already seen this photo of me checking out the tiny marigold plant my human brought home from some event she attended. Note the use of effects in an attempt to cover up how cruddy the photo is.

She planted it in the backyard. Surprisingly, it is still alive.

She took home this marigold because she heard it is good at repelling pests… and she thought it might help protect more valuable greenery, like the little nip seedling.

And guess what? That little nip plant is an extension of last year’s plant! Remember what an awful time I had getting it started because my human kept letting the gardeners rip it out? Well, it is huge now! My human tries not to let it go to seed and she just removed a bunch of budding stems.

So that meant just one thing… a fresh nip party!

With the inevitable party crasher.

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Remember to nominate me for The Petties, especially my story Humans Are Willfully Destroying Our Bird TV (http://www.sparklecat.com/special/humans-are-willfully-destroying-our-bird-tv) for Best Blog Post! You can do this every day until June 28 — the more times, the better!
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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!

Wordless Wednesday: Thinking of My Friends in Need

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Remember to nominate me for The Petties, especially my story Humans Are Willfully Destroying Our Bird TV (http://www.sparklecat.com/special/humans-are-willfully-destroying-our-bird-tv) for Best Blog Post! You can do this every day until June 28 — the more times, the better!
* * *
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!

Let’s Celebrate Do NOT Hug Your Cat Day!

Unhand me, you scoundrel! No hugging today!

And no kissing either!

I know a bunch of you kitties aren’t into the hugging thing, so let’s turn this day on its ear and have Do NOT Hug Your Cat Day! Here are some feline-friendly activities humans can do instead of hugging us cats; pick your favorites and give the list to your humans.

Petting
Chin skritching
Brushing
Butt whapping (confess — I know some of you out there love this!)
Treat giving
Open-window Bird TV
Playtime!
Just plain leave you alone for the day

Got any other things you would rather your human do instead of (ugh) hugging you? Tell me in the comments!
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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!

It’s Petties Time Again! Nominate Me!

I will be honest. I was not going to actively campaign for the Petties this year. Campaigning for contests takes up a lot of energy that I feel I could use better by working on quality posts for my blog, putting together my new book and having my human create new items for my Zazzle store. I like helping out causes that benefit cats, but I feel I could do better work by focusing energy on my own instead of trying to win a contest where, if I don’t win, the rescue does not get anything except maybe some temporary publicity.

I’ve won two Petties. Do I really need to do this again? Well, guess what — the answer, I have decided, is YES!

Why am I jumping in again when you can tell I’m not as enthusiastic about this as I have been in the past? Because there are cats out there who need our help who don’t have a voice, and who have been getting kicked around a lot lately: our feral brothers and sisters! They have been getting a bad rap from organizations that are manipulating statistics to make them look like they are decimating the bird population (not true). Misguided humans think ferals are dirty and disease-ridden, when the truth is that cats in a managed feral colony are as healthy as most housecats — they are spayed and neutered and receive vaccinations, flea control and medical care.

So nominate me for whatever categories you want, but please help raise awareness for our extended feral family by nominating Humans Are Willfully Destroying Our Bird TV! for Best Blog Post: http://www.sparklecat.com/special/humans-are-willfully-destroying-our-bird-tv. It shows where the blame for bird deaths really lies: in human encroachment.

I can’t emphasize enough how important it is for us to push back these cat-hating humans who want to do terrible things to feral cats. I hope my blog post gets in the finals. If it does, I will ask you to help me pick a local rescue organization that specializes in helping feral cats.

Nominate me here: http://petties.dogtime.com/nominations. You will have to log in, either with an email or your Facebook profile. Once you have, you can nominate any blogs you want, but make sure you enter me for Best Blog Post. You can do this once a day, every day until June 28. Thanks!
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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!

10 Ways Humans Benefit By Adopting Cats

Most of you already know that June is Adopt-A-Cat Month, and this year I think we kitties should step up our game. There are lots of homeless cats out there that need our help. So I hope you will all put on your thinking caps and come up with new ways to promote cat adoption — and that those of you who blog will write posts about what you come up with.

I did some deep thinking (in between naps) this weekend and realized that we cats need to market ourselves the same way anyone or anything else gets marketed — humans need to know “what’s in it for me?” It is the classic “features versus benefits” argument. Humans don’t care about our stunning looks, cute antics or ninja skills unless it is going to make their lives better somehow. So in that spirit, I have come up with 10 ways that we cats benefit humans and enhance their lives! I hope you can find some talking points here next time somebody waffles about adopting a cat.

1. Cats make great alarm clocks, waking up humans right on time, at the same time every morning. Even better, we do not have snooze alarms.

2. With our soft, touchable fur and calming purrs, cats are great stress-relievers.

3. Cats are great help around the house. We will supervise everything you do, especially if it involves boxes, wrapping paper or food. Oh, except for vacuuming and certain other domestic chores which are beneath us.

4. Cats are creatures of discernment; the kind of love we offer is deeply considered and not given lightly. It is a much richer, more complex bond than one has with any other creature. Including humans, who tend to be too complex and often lacking in richness.

5. Cats are living, breathing home decor, with more grace and beauty than the vase that we knocked off the mantle. In fact, replacing your breakables with cats creates a stunning look for your home.

6. Cats will teach you how to hunt, if you let us.

7. Cats will watch even the worst reality TV show with you and never disparage your taste in programming.

8. If you have never aspired to a leadership position, a cat makes the perfect pet because you will never be our boss. In fact, bossing us around is futile.

9. You never have to buy clothes for a cat. In fact, we prefer that you don’t.

10. Cats constantly remind you that rules are made to be broken.
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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: Black Cat PSA

Today’s video is more cute than funny, but it also carries a powerful message about black cat adoption! As I have mentioned before, we are color blind here when it comes to cats, and there have been many black cats in my human’s family. I look forward to the day when everyone realizes how awesome house panthers are. Until then, here are 10 reasons to adopt a black cat — please share liberally!

If you can’t see the video above, click here to watch 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 Mish-Mash

I had something else planned for my blog post today, but the photos didn’t turn out. So I had to think fast… and I realized that a lot of times, photos didn’t turn out. You have no idea how often this happens. Here are a few examples from just this past month.

You know how some humans like to take photos of their food and post them on Facebook and Instagram? My human thought it would be funny to take that idea and transfer it to cat food. She forgot one of the cardinal rules of satire: it has to be something worth satirizing to begin with.

My human left this box sitting around for days, hoping that one of us would do something fun with it. The only thing that happened is that I got mad because Boodie looked at it. There weren’t even smacky paws because let’s face it, the box wasn’t worth it.

Do you like those cool, shadowy photos my human likes to take of me? Well, this set didn’t work out.

When my human was at LitFest Pasadena, she brought home this snake toy and she wanted us cats to pose with it. None of us wanted to pose with it! Can you tell how annoyed Binga was? Hint: you can’t see her tail because it is nothing but a blur.

My human wanted to get a cute photos of me playing peek-a-boo with that silly paper drink thing she brought back from BlogPaws. As you can tell, I wasn’t into it.

Do you notice a running theme here? Every last idea began with “my human thought…”
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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!

Toy Testing: Edgar’s Attic Edition

Can you tell how impatient I am! I can’t wait to get this package open and my human keeps messing with the camera.

These toys from Edgar’s Attic are so potent that I can smell them through the packaging!

I got two of them — a snake with a bell and a mousie with a braided tail! Let me at ‘em!

I’m playing so hard, my human is having a difficult time capturing the action!

In fact, these toys were so awesome, they couldn’t be properly captured by my human’s camera! I captured them just fine though!

Not only are these toys loaded with high-quality nip and fun, they are reasonably priced… and the human at Edgar’s Attic offered to make them even more reasonably priced for my readers by offering a discount if you buy them between now and June 15! Use the code SPARKLE15 and you will get 15% off a purchase of $10 or more!

Edgar’s Attic is on Etsy and can be found here: http://www.etsy.com/shop/EdgarsPlayhouse

Note: the Edgar’s Attic human comped me these toys to review, but all opinions are totally my own. And yes, I am still high on nip!
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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!

Ask Sparkle: the Music Edition

On my original Ask Me Anything post, a couple of you had music-related questions. My pal Sammy asked, “I’d like to know if you enjoy listening to music… I like classical music myself although my parents rarely listen to it themselves.” And my friends Angel and Isabella from Beaded Tail said, “we’d like to know if your human’s boyfriend plays his guitar in the house and if that bothers you.”

I have to say that even though I live with a writer who spent many years as a rock journalist and a musician, this is a pretty un-musical house! Which perhaps is just as well. The kind of music my human mostly wrote about was heavy metal. The cat before me was subjected to the classic, but not classical, strains of bands like Metallica, Slayer and Motörhead, and she did not like it one bit! Maybe that is why she insisted on being an indoor-outdoor cat. Fortunately, my human does not play a lot of music nowadays and when she does, it tends to be more indie and alternative rock — sometimes as abrasive, but not generally as loud as heavy metal. So um, yeah, Sammy — the only classical music that gets played around here is when it is the soundtrack to a vintage-1920s era silent movie (my human’s other passion).

My human’s boyfriend doesn’t listen to much more music than my human does, and usually it is something like watching videos of the Rolling Stones on his computer. He does practice here, but it is never very loud. For a while, one of his bands was rehearsing in the upstairs part of the bedroom “wing” of the house (our home is L-shaped, hence the “wings”), but the sound was muffled so it never bothered us cats any.

All that said, I do confess I have a love-hate relationship with his musical equipment. It has been this way since the beginning, back at the old house.

These guitar cases always seem to be in the way. He has bunches of them… and yeah, they usually have guitars in them.

Although sometimes they also have cats.

Plus he usually isn’t all that thrilled when we cats inspect his guitars. Frankly, I think they could use a good nose print or two, and some cat fur.

Even worse, he has a habit of leaving these things in my sun puddles. It has something to do with “aging” them. Fortunately, he has gotten into the habit of leaving them outside instead.

So I don’t really care much about the guitars themselves, or the sounds they make… but the cases are occasionally good for a nap!

If you have a question about me you would like to ask, you can still ask it at the original Ask Me Anything post!
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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!