cat doodles

Print it off and write an old fashioned letter.

Cat Teasing a Lobster

Drawing a Day: Cats on the Couch

Back to back, of course. I don't know if they'll ever like each other.

This and all of the drawings so far are available on a coffee mug. 

Suitable for Small Kitties

Grenix enjoys watching nature programs on television.

Plumbing with Cats

Handle leaking sludge,

Bolt won't budge...

Bodkay lends a paw

With the hack saw.

When all is said and done

The water doesn't run.  :(

Another Saturday Morning

Big Z did her first pet-sitting gig and got $80! (It paid $100 to watch three cats for two weeks, but I charged her $20 for transportation.) With her money, she has now purchased two fake banana slugs, which are sticky and gooey and realistic looking, and she keeps putting them places around the house and saying, "AH! A SLUG! HOW DID THAT GET THERE! YUCK!" Of course, once you've heard that gag once, it gets old. So, we kind of put up with this slug thing. Oh, that's really funny honey. I thought that was a slug, but it's not. Yeah. Really funny.

So, this morning, when Bad Assed Husband (BAH) got up and walked around and stepped on something squishy, he naturally thought it was a fake slug. Ha ha, very funny, he thought, and didn't even look down. After stepping on it a few times, he thought that the slug felt a little bit too squishy, and he looked down to see that he was actually stepping on a decapitated mouse, with its guts pouring out under the side of his foot.

The cats like to bite the heads off of mice and leave the bodies for later clean-up. They fight over who gets to bite the head off. The whole time, the mouse will be there, trying to get away, while one of them pins it onto the floor with one paw and fights the other cat with the other. Tigery generally wins the battle and bites off the head, but occasionally, she'll give it up to Bodkay.

Sweet kitties.

Bodkay usually loses the fight.

They fight over mouse heads, but they love each other.

Gratuitous Kitty Photo

Process of a Painting

I wanted to do a night scene, so I painted the wood black. 

Then I decided to paint a firefly, because I love fireflies. They make me happy in a quiet sort of way.
So I spray painted the middle. And then I thought about how they always light up as they make their way up
from the ground, so my eyes always see this sort of trail of light underneath them. Which is why I also spray painted
a line going down--- and at this point, I worried that people would think I was painting a nuclear bomb
explosion. 

I printed an actual photo of a firefly to draw from, and attached it to the corner of the wood.
I do this a lot, sometimes to copy exactly, and sometimes just for a guideline. 

I was thinking of the tall grass and how it looks at night. I added some color because this is
my painting and I can add things that aren't really there. Also, at this point, you can see that my
scale is completely off. If a firefly this large appeared in my life, I would assume someone
dropped an LSD tab in my coffee today. Again, though, it's my painting and I don't care. 

Then it needed a cat. I had no intention at all of including a cat, but
the muses insisted. It makes me think of Teresa, our boy cat named after
the comic genius Teresa Burritt (who is female). Teresa prowls the night.
May the Frog Blog rest in peace. Long live the Frog Blog. 

This painting, which looks better (more in focus!) in person will be going to a local show on December 5th. If you happen to be in Wisconsin (or Northern Illinois, like Wheatbread Johnson) on the 5th of December, it's at 4 PM- 8PM at the Old District #1 School House in Mount Horeb.  And you are all invited to come and witness my nimrodic powers (my powers , as they may be... perhaps not as great as Wanda Gág's) in person.

How to Fix an Accordion

First of all, you'll need a cat.


Update: The accordion repair was a success! All six formerly non-functional keys are now working! I could play in any key, If only I knew how to play the accordion...

Bodkay's Favorite Place to Be

He likes it when you run water over him. Then he comes to get pet, all wet on my lap.

Another Silly Cat Post

This is a picture of Tigery playing with Little Z's toys. She was sitting on that pretend fire engine, which has all these buttons on it that make it talk and honk and such. Tigery the cat was pressing the buttons and making it say, "Call 911", "Stop, drop, and roll," and then making it do the fire engine noise. She stopped when I came in. Was she thinking she was in trouble? Does she look guilty to you?
(click to make it oh so large)

More Cats!

Little Z named them: Bodkay is the orange one, Tigery is the grey.

We went shopping for a cat tree to put in front of the window today, and they were over $100. Our general sentiment was,

"Hey, that's just a bunch of wood and carpet and feathers hanging off of it! We've got wood and old carpet and chicken feathers at home, so let's just make one!" Except for Little Z- she wanted to buy one, of course.

It took me about two hours to make a cat tree. It's as nice as the $129 model at the store. I didn't have to purchase any materials. It's all leftover from other projects or recycled or garbage. The chicken feathers seem to be the cats' favorite part of the thing. Here are some more pictures of cats:

Cats!

A few weeks ago, I discovered that some creature had been eating my super special hard-won, home grown pumpkins in the root cellar. One of them was half eaten. That's a lot of squash. There were mouse droppings nearby.

Four evenings ago, I heard a rustling. I was alone in the living room. I went over to the fireplace, where it was coming from, and peered into the vent where the fan blows the hot air out of the fireplace. A mouse jumped out an inch from my nose, sailed through the air and ran off into the corner of the room, behind some boxes.

The night before last, we found an old mouse trap in the kitchen with just the tail of a mouse caught in it. The rest of the mouse was gone. Later on that night, I kept hearing a rustling in the kitchen.

Last night, bad ass husband and I were sitting in the dining room, playing a board game, when we heard the pitter patter of mouse feet above our heads, between the ceiling and the upstairs floor. Over and over. On and on. At the same time, we heard another mouse in the garbage under the sink.

"Maybe it's time to get a cat."

So, today we went to the Humane Society, looking for a young, playful cat. We did not say, "We need a good mouser." That's because they frown on that. I don't know why. Is it because it's cruel to the mouse? Because it sure isn't cruel to the cat. In my experience, there is no happier cat than a mouse hunting cat.

We went to Madison today and found these two sweeties at the Humane Society:






The orange one is a male, the grey is a female. They're both a year old. They came with the names, "Toby" for the orange and "Tipper" for the grey. I wanted especially to change "Tipper," because it just reminds me of Tipper Gore, and I don't want Tipper Gore sitting on my lap waiting to be pet. I've always wanted to have two cats named "Beastie" and "Ludwig Wittgenstein," but when we met them, they seemed a bit too small and innocent for such grand names. Little Z started calling "Tipper" "Kipper", which is just fine. So I guess we won't be insanely creative. Perhaps we'll change our minds tomorrow and call them "Rasputina Gravytrain" and "Dave".

I let Toby investigate the cupboard under the sink. We showed that mouse that we've jumped it up a notch. We've only had the cats a few hours, but thus far, they have spent much time patrolling the grounds, chasing anything that moves. They chased Little Z a lot. I give them high marks for their first day.

In summary, to rid ourselves of a lot of tiny creatures roaming around, we got some bigger creatures to roam around, and now we have lots of things roaming around.