For Halloween

A little late, Henri.

Some Pictures with Cats

I don't tend to take my own photo very often, but looking through my Photo Booth folder on my Mac, I found that I am very likely to take my photo with my cats. There are many varieties of these photos.

Photo with washed out face and slightly annoyed cat.

Matt with cats and my arm.

Small cat experiencing forced cuddling while my hair is not brushed.

Cat and I sharing the comfy leather chair.

Me photo bombing my cat.

Taking my photo with a cat when it's cold in the house and I don't want to turn up the heat.

Poorly framed photo of me with my sister's cat Penny. Penny never cuddles with me. It had to be documented, even if shoddily so.

Me with a sticker on my chest and our sweetie Chloe, who died 2 years ago.

Photos of me where my hair is still not brushed with an aggressive cat.

Photos where the cat has given up on biting me and is instead climbing on me.

More photos where the cat is lunging at my face.

Me smooching my cats. With unbrushed hair. There are lots of these, especially with the hair thing.

And me in my rain jacket with cat.

So that's it. That's about every variation of my self portraits with cat.

The Cats Are Alright

I still need to sort through house photos, and take some of the outside, but in the meantime here is a sneak peek. As you can see, the cats are adjusting well.

Guess which one of these ottomans I recovered after it was shredded by cats and which one I haven't gotten to yet. See that beautiful blue wall? I painted that. And that's my beautiful cat as well. I am a lucky gal. Except for that bit where my cats destroy our stuff on occasion.

And now, ladies and gentlemen, some cats...

We moved, folks! Not the blog, us, literally, to a new house. Obviously this impacts the cats enormously, so I will post some updates soon including photos of the new digs. We've been in the new house a full week, but it's still totally crazy around here. It reminds me that moving is less like a tornado and more like a hurricane. Or maybe a multi-day blizzard. Choose the weather phenomenon of your choice that suggests both chaos and sustained misery.

What Flavor Are You?

 

Matt and I were discussing creating our signature ice cream flavors the other day. My obsession with tailor made ice cream flavors stems from two sources: the acquisition of an ice cream attachment for our Kitchen Aide, and a children's book I read in elementary school. I can't remember the title, but the story was set in an elementary school classroom. One student was obsessed with ice cream and was always shoving ice cream cones into his or her desk and making a mess. Based on this student's fixation with ice cream, the teacher of the class made ice cream for everyone in the class. Not everyone got the same flavor, though-- she matched the flavors to the students. The flavors were, in essence, meant to capture something about the personality of the students. Some students were satisfied with their custom flavors, others envied and tried to steal other student's flavors.

I'm not sure if I was reading the intended message into the story, but I was struck by how some kids wanted other people's ice creams even though they had their own tailor-made flavors designed to suit them. There was something about the dissonance between having something made with you in mind but not wanting that thing that stuck with me. How could you not like something designed to complement you?

I know what my signature ice cream flavor is: a custard based ice cream flavored with green tea, lavender and honey. It is to die for. I may call it "Shannon's Morning Tea Ice Cream" since it's pretty similar to the tea I drink most mornings. Matt hasn't figured out his signature ice cream flavor yet, in part because I've been reluctant to make ice cream with sugar instead of honey, and Matt is avowedly a traditionalist in terms of his ice cream sweeteners. He complains that you can taste the honey when it's used to sweeten ice cream instead of sugar, as if that were a bad thing.

We also discussed what ice cream flavors would suit our cats. We've got pretty good ones for Pete and Petunia figured out. Petunia's would be Bumblebee Ice Cream: lemon ice cream with real vanilla bean sweetened with honey. The inspiration came from her backyard visits. A few days ago Matt spied her chasing bumblebees in the overgrown grass, after which I imagined she sipped tea while playing mahjong with her unicorn friends (update: Petunia has also taken to chasing lighting bugs. Which makes her the Cutest Cat Ever.). Pete's ice cream would be solidly traditional in its conception but still delicious. Pete's Hot Fudge Sundae Ice Cream: vanilla ice cream (made with sugar, no honey) with fudge swirls and toasted nuts and bits of cherries.

Roscoe's ice cream flavor was harder to come up with. I think it's in part because he just doesn't seem like he would eat ice cream. He's more the type of cat that has black coffee and two aspirin for breakfast, and finishes off his day sipping scotch. Right now we're thinking of something along the lines of Roscoe's Bread Pudding Ice Cream. Roscoe loves bread and grains (he gets aggressive when you eat rice cakes in his presence and will try to smack them out of your hand) as well as fruit, and the creaminess of bread pudding seems to suit him somehow. Chicken Bridge Bakery at the farmers' market uses fresh berries in their serving size bread puddings, and that is my favorite way to have them, rather than with raisins. Perhaps a buttermilk custard ice cream with berries, cinnamon and swirls of maple syrup could work. We're still working on the details.

Here are pictures of Petunia playing outside. She did, in fact, spend some time admiring a bumblebee on this particular outing, which I got in the first picture, but I don't think you can see the bee. I took some video of her playing, but our little camera saves movie files in some strange format so I haven't figured out how to view it or post it. I will do that as soon as I figure it out, provided I don't have to buy some fancy software.

Halloween in May!

It's kind of like Christmas in July, which makes sense, because if Christmas (December) is in July, then Halloween (October), would be in May. Right? No? Are you sure?

I guess this is just further proof that I am the world's worst cat blogger. Here are pictures of us from Halloween. I'm Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, and Matt is Charlie Brown. Matt's rather inflexible about wearing any costume more complicated than his normal clothing, so he's more or less Charlie Brown every year.

Petunia was a rather uncooperative Toto.

trying to get Toto in the basket. It didn't work.

look at how pretty Petunia is! She doesn't care much for being picked up, but she indulges us.

Snoopy?

Petunia beat the crap out of faux-Toto, the stuffed animal I carried in my basket at the Halloween party we went to.

die faux-Toto!

Pete comes over to observe.

right for the jugular!

kicking with the back legs! ouch!

<3 <3 <3

What do kittens do best?

Cuddle! I can't believe these photos are from August. I need to get more recent ones off my camera and post them, stat. Petunia is her own little cat person now. She won't be as big as Roscoe, but she's almost full size and she has filled out. She is completely adorable and loveable, and always working on something, whether it's moving water dishes around the floor or hunting mice or keeping her brothers on their toes. She spend a lot of time attacking them up but it's not malicious at all-- I think she just loves them so much she can't help but try and eat them up. I know the feeling well.

We recently have started to let her outside on supervised trips for half an hour or an hour at a time. Maybe she can work out some her wiles in the great outdoors. She loves being outside, and we're training her to respect the boundaries of the yard (more or less) and come in when she's called. Roscoe and Pete are helping-- she generally wants to do whatever they're doing. Her love of treats is also a big incentive.